chocolate honey spice cake

Let's start the week with cake shall we? It had been a while since we'd done any baking but when Autumn's cooler weather arrived on the weekend River and Sol were asking "Can we bake a cake?" 

I didn't have a recipe in mind, I wanted to work with ingredients that were in the cupboard and this chocolate honey spice cake is what Sol and I came up with after I googled around for some ideas. While Sol and I measured ingredients, mixed and stirred the cake River opted to watch E.T. for the first time but was quick to appear when the bowl needing licking. How I remember crying my way through the end of that movie when I was 6.

I had to hold Sol back from eating the squares of butter as I cut them up, and felt continually nervous as I used the electric beater that he would attempt to dive his little fingers into the bowl to pinch another butter square. Ah, cooking with children it is messy and slow and satisfying.

Chocolate honey spice cake 

Ingredients

125g butter, diced

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup honey

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour (I used gluten free)

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon

Chocolate 'icing'

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1/4 cup honey

2 tbsp hot water

1/2 cup icing sugar

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 180C

Grease and line a small rectangular or round baking dish/cake tin (or you could make cupcakes).

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in eggs one at a time, stir in vanilla.

Beat in honey until smooth.

Fold in flour, cocoa and cinnamon.

Stir in milk until smooth.

Pour batter into prepared tin and bake for 20-30 minutes until edges are cooked and centre just springs back when you press on it. It is better to take it out a little early than overcook and have a dry cake.

For the icing

I began this mixture wanting to avoid using the icing sugar so I mixed the honey, cocoa and water together to make a sort of sauce but the cocoa was a bit overpowering so I decided to add some icing sugar just enough to keep the sauce consistency. It is quite sweet and not something I would make all the time but once every now and again is ok in my book.

You could add garam masala to the cake if you wanted to increase the spicyness.

A friend arrived just as this was coming out of the oven, with the help of my three chocolate cake lovers and our guest there wasn't much left by the time he departed. I managed to whisk a piece away into the fridge for River's lunch box. Chocolate cake isn't a usual addition to River's school lunch but in his words "mum, we're celebrating the start of term 2".

Do you have an alternative to making icing with icing sugar? I'd love to hear. Happy back to school for those returning today. And happy holidays to those just beginning, I am envious! x

Spain's hottest chocolate

Homegrown and homemade are best yes. There are though, a few imports I have a weakness for. Spain's Blanxart artisan chocolate in any form is one of them.

Since I first wrote about Blanxart, in The Age Epicure I became a fan, so when Raw Materials offered to send me Blanxart's drinking chocolate to try I said yes please!

This winter, hot chocolate made at home has been an occasional after school warming drink. I've tried a few different brands of drinking chocolate and most of them are incredibly sweet. The quality that stands out about Blanxart drinking chocolate is the beautiful velvet chocolatey-ness shines through because it is not smothered by sugar. The bitterness of the cocoa is balanced with a well considered amount of sugar but not overpowered.

If you're interested in a bit of background to the Blanxart story, they have been around since 1954 and hail from the Les Corts region in Barcelona. The company was started by a talented master chocolatier and four courageous partners. I say courageous because I really admire people who take a risk and start 'something from nothing' so to speak and see where it takes them, the master chocolatier left the security of working for other people in their cake and chocolate businesses to follow his own vision and has succeeded in creating a highly regarded brand.

In addition to their drinking chocolate, Blanxart create blocks of exquisite dark chocolate 60%, 72%, 80% and 82% cocoa content and also a milk chocolate 48%. The exquisiteness all begins with the careful selection of cocoa beans from Ecuador, Brazil and Africa, the beans are then roasted by Blanxart to ensure the perfectly balanced blend, aroma and texture is achieved.

Hot chocolate drinking days are numbered though as the sun is shining here today. I'll pretend Spring is closer than it is.      

If you live in Australia you can find Blanxart drinking chocolate in these stores:
Oasis Bakery, Murrumbeena Victoria; Alps and Amici, East Launceston Tasmania; Farmer Jack's Subiaco, Subiaco Western Australia; and Delicado, McMahons Point New South Wales.        

**Disclaimer - Thanks to Raw Materials for sending me Blanxart drinking chocolate. As with all samples that have been coming my way since I started food writing 12 years ago, some are worth writing about and sharing with readers others are not. I decided to share Blanxart here with you because I thought you'd like it! I was not paid to write this post.

conscious chocolate

This little box of chocolate caught my attention on the counter of Rye Health my local health food store here on the Peninsula. It took me a few visits to part with $6.95 for 45g, it definitely qualifies as a mummy only kind of indulgence. To give you a picture of the intensity of this dose of chocolate there are six squares per packet, here are four remaining from my current stash...

I tried first the raw cocoa variety, the texture is close to a chocolate truffle. One square satiates even the strongest chocolate desire. I've since tried the coconut and goji and loved that there was a perfect balance of coconut and goji berries.

Conscious Chocolate is a funny name for a chocolate bar. It doesn't have a heartbeat but it is handmade from raw organic ingredients and the makers state their health and environmental conscience clearly:

"At Conscious Chocolate we are concerned with 3 things; the quality of our chocolate, the health of your insides and the sustainability of the Earth."


I don't intend this to be an ad. it is just so good I had to share - not the actual chocolate - you'll have to buy your own.


Part of the joy of this chocolate is that it is actually good for you. Really. And satiates like no other, I know I'm repeating myself. 


It contains no refined sugar, instead it is sweetened with agave nectar which has a naturally low GI index. (There's a bit of controversy to be read about how agave nectar is being promoted as the Next Best Thing in natural sweeteners and how the promotion is misleading. If you're interested read this lengthy and informative post over at Food Renegade a blog written by a passionate American wholefood loving mum). 


Now that I consider the quality of the ingredients in Conscious Chocolate and the fact that it is handmade from start to finish, $6.95 is a good deal after all.