Vanessa Kimbell makes Chilli Chocolate Cake

Written by Vanessa Kimbell on Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 03:14PM
Filed in: Recipes
Comments: 0

CERTAINLY not for the children - this is a cake for grown ups. You get your sweet fix, followed by a chilli hit and chocolate burst to finish - just how I like it. Intense. It is a rich cake so it's worth the calories to indulge in just one. Two words of warning - don't get carried away with the chilli. Use the exact amount. Too hot is not nice. Secondly don't get mixed up and use picked beetroots!

Preparation notes:

Makes two cakes

Preparation time is 10 minutes for the cakes and 15 minutes for decoration

Cooking time is 25 minutes

Suitable for freezing before decorating

Make an extra one - to freeze

Ingredients

For the cake:

150ml rape seed oil

3 eggs

300g grated, drained, cooked beetroot

225g self-raising flour

75g cocoa powder

1 level tsp chilli powder

280g caster sugar

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the icing:

150g icing sugar

60g egg white

50g cocoa powder

Chilis:

Two small packets of florist icing paste

One red, one green

For the filling:

150g dark chocolate

50ml double cream

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/350F/Gas mark 4.

2. Sift all the dry ingredients for the cake into a bowl.

3. In a separate bowl place the 3 eggs and whisk. Add to this the oil and beetroot.

4. Add the dry mixture into the wet ingredients. Mix well.

5. Divide the mixture between two 8ins tins and bake in the oven for 25 minutes until they have risen and spring back into shape if touched.

6. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

7. For the filling, melt the chocolate in a bain marie and add the cream. Mix well until the chocolate thickens. If it is a little too runny, pop it in the fridge to cool down. Cut the cake in half and spread in the middle before sandwiching back together.

8. Mix the egg, cocoa powder and icing sugar together. Adjust the consistency to get a good thick icing sugar and spread generously on top.

9. To make the sugar chillies, break off small pieces of the red sugar paste, roll in your hands to a chewing gum consistency and roll into a chilli shape. You have to work quickly as it dries out. Keep what you are not using covered. Make a stalk using the green paste. Using the end of a chopstick push a small dent in the top and using a really tiny drop of water as glue stick the two together. Voila - top your cakes with chillies!

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