A Great Big Welcome and Testing Mud Cake(s)

 A Great Big Welcome...

I'm not new to blogging, and perhaps I will share my other blog with you one day... But for now, all of my efforts are being directed here, to CAKE!!! I love caking and it's truly what I was meant to do in this life. I love teaching so adding this blog to my repertoire fills my love to share my knowledge and inspire others.

So a big, warm welcome to you! Let's begin :)


...and Testing Mud Cake(s)

I've been terribly curious about this "mud cake" that so many of my overseas caking compadres talk about. So I asked some of the awesome gals at ACDN's member's page for some resources - tried and true mud cakes recipes that they know and love. They responded generously sending me 3 recipe resources to try. And below is the first of my "Mud Cake Experiment". 

White Chocolate Mud Cake - Exclusively Food Recipe

Yup. There's a ginormous air pocket in the bottom of the cake. The perfectionist in me is twitching. And that bugger caused the remainder of this experiment to be rather invalid. Why, you may ask? I unknowingly inserted my skewer directly into the cavern to test for doneness, giving me a false positive.  I thought it was ready to exit its heat bath in the oven when in actuality it was still underbaked. You can see by the deep, smooth patch just to the right of the air pocket that it was not yet done.

I was disappointed. I did, however, taste and explore the area of the cake near the edges where it was done baking and the crumb structure was more properly "cakey."

Now, for all cakers and bakers who are unfamiliar with mud cake as I was until just the other day, it is very different from what I understand cake to be: light (mostly, unless it's pound cake), open crumb structure, moist but not dense, and relatively spongy. It rises rather dramatically in the oven due to both chemical leaveners and/or the creaming process. While this cake rises a bit due to the self-rising flour used in the recipe, it behaves more like a brownie. Actually, the recipe and method are very similar to that of a brownie. In fact, it even east like a brownie! Go figure... Like brownies it calls for melted chocolate and I used Cadbury White chocolate in my test.

This cake is very, very moist and dense, rich with flavor, and has an impossibly dense crumb structure. It is heavy for it's appearance. It is much more like our brownies here in the U.S. rather than birthday or wedding style cake that we are accustom to.

All that said, I'm taking my own opinion with a grain of salt here, and reserving my final opinion for after the next two cakes, as they were successes.

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake - part 1

My next challenge, after the white chocolate mud cake fail, was to do the dark chocolate mud cakes.

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe - How 2 Cakes

This first cake was very dark and rich, very fudgy when eaten cold. I didn't try it the day I baked it, I let it mature for 2 days in the fridge and I'm told that is what creates this wonderfully moist result. The crumb, as you can see, was very dense and it didn't crumble much. Those crumbs in the picture? Yeah. I had to make those. This cake wasn't giving it up! This recipe is the one that was most like a brownie out of the three I tried.

To compare and contrast the above recipe to the lower recipe, get your fork ready and let's dig in!

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake - part 2

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe 2 - from The Australian Women's Weekly

Now, you may notice that this mud cake is a bit lighter in color than the first dark chocolate mud cake. It has different ratios of cocoa, chocolate and flour that account for the different appearance.

The difference in flavor with this second mud cake was very noticeable. This one a has mild tang to it. It's not as deep and rich in flavor and sweetness as the first and I found this to be the perfect eating cake. The recipe calls for a chocolate frosting, but I like these (as an American) as a nice alternative to brownies. However, paired with a milk chocolate ganache this might be my go-to specialty cake.

Would I use it for a tiered cake here in the states? Most-likely not. But that's just me and the typical American palate. No knocks on this yummy cake!

I'm using mud cake for my birthday cake which will be sculpted. I think with its tight crumb structure and moistness it'll lend very nicely to carving. When I make a 3D carved cake my biggest concern is "Will the cake hold on to the butter cream, and will they together be sturdy enough for my design?" I wouldn't want a ton of butter cream with a cake this rich, so thinner layers of filling will work well for sculpting and still be well balanced taste-wise.

Keep your eyes peeled on my Facebook page and Instagram for my birthday cake... I almost can't control my excitement!