White Chocolate Mud Cake

It was my sister's birthday this weekend, which meant I was in charge of making a decadent birthday cake to celebrate.  As it was sunny outside, I thought I'd forget the traditional chocolate cake and go for a white chocolate mud cake with strawberries.  I followed this recipe from the Pink Whisk: http://www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk/2013/06/white-chocolate-mud-cake.html

A great recipe, very indulgent and delicious. I didn't use any chocolate in the icing, as felt it was already pretty packed full of white chocolate, and I don't think you'd notice the difference...but apart from that I followed it exactly.

I'll definitely be making this one again - for a special occasion. Note the ice blocks in the image below (I don't recommend making a white chocolate collar for a cake when it's really hot outside!)

Slutty Brownies

Warning and disclaimer - These are the most droolworthy brownies in the world. You'll become obsessed.

Thanks to the lovely Rosie at The Londoner http://www.thelondoner.me/ I found myself making her fantastically decadent recipe for slutty brownies.

It's a ridiculously good combination of oreos, chocolate brownie and cookie dough.

As i'm a foodie blogger and don't like cutting corners too much I followed her recipe but used a homemade recipe for chocolate brownie and cookie dough, rather than using a box mix.

You simply make a cookie dough, add oreos on top and then finish off with the chocolate fudge cake.

Absolutely immense when served warm with ice cream.



Here's the cookie dough with oreos on the top!



Delicious brownie when cooked

Just before I tucked into it!

Low calorie baking experiments

So, i'm trying to lose weight at the moment but have a big baking addiction, which really isn't helping. So this weekend I experimented with a few low calorie recipes....which weren't a huge success.

Experiment 1: The sugar free chocolate bundt cake
As you can see from the picture below, I tried a chunk of this...but that was it.  I replaced the sugar in the recipe with a Stevia powder.

Not recommended. Horrible bitter taste, cake didn't rise properly and left a funny after taste in my mouth

 

Think i need to spend some more time experimenting with these sugar replacements in baking to make sure the quantities i'm using are correct.



 

Experiment 2: Rosemary Conley Chocolate brownie recipe

 

This was a recipe i'd pulled from a magazine a while ago and decided now was the time to try it. This one wasn't such a failure - it looked like chocolate brownie and when kept in the fridge for a few hours it tasted like a brownie. It just had an unusual sticky consistency. You'd definitely have figured it was low calorie. (sorry for really bad picture - it actually looked pretty good in real life)

 



 

I don't think i'll be trying either of these again unfortunately.

 

So, please help me find some more alternative low calorie recipes!



Chocolate Cake time

Just thought i'd share my lovely chocolate cake picture.  I've made this cake a dozen or so times but this time, rather than covering with chocolate icing, I covered with vanilla icing and topped with raspberries.

I'm not going to giveaway my secret recipe for making the most chocolatey cake ever (let's just say there is plenty of cadbury's involved) but you can find a recipe for a good chocolate cake here:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3092/ultimate-chocolate-cake