This Bird's Nest: What to do when your city floods and you have nothing to do.... White Chocolate Mudcake

The last few days have been so surreal. With increasing feelings of powerlessness, we have sat at home watching the some of the worst floods to ever hit Brisbane and many other parts of Australia, carve their path of destruction. We are on a hill and in our area; you wouldn't know anything bad was going on at all. We joined every volunteer organisation we could so that we would be able to help with the clean up, made sure that every person we knew was safe and that both them and their belongings were above the expected peak water level..... and then we waited. House after house went under.

This picture of a house in Milton was taken by Michael McQueen, retrieved from The Courier Mail website.

This picture of the Brisbane River was taken by Marc Homan, retrieved from The Courier Mail website

Apparently the world doesn't stop turning in events such as these and things like birthday and assignments continue to exist!!! My partner’s nephew turned 2 the other day and I had already agreed to bake him a cake. Although I felt rotten baking a cake while others were losing their homes... it was a relief to turn off the TV and to stop the 24/7 dialogue of despair and destruction.

And so here is the resulting cake. (Sorry about the shite pictures - I only have my phone and the light in our kitchen is even worse!)

I know the cake is for a 2 year old, but given that he was the only person under the age of 26 at the party I thought that a rich chocolate cake was still an appropriate choice. I ended up doing a half dark chocolate mud, half white chocolate mud cake to get the height I was after and because I was afraid the dark chocolate part was too dark and rich.

So, as you can see - a REALLY rich and dense cake. I used a butte icing and had scoped out jus the right icing tip I needed to do the grass, but then the flood came and I was unable to get to the shop to buy it; so I settled for spaghetti grass instead.

I had also wanted to put a fence around it, but again with all the shops closed, I didn't have enough ingredients to make the fondant. On the day of the birthday party a few shops had opened, but even if I bought readymade fondant, it wasn't going to set in time. So I decided I'd make it out of white chocolate - which also failed. I used white chocolate drops, which were apparently meant for cookies and cupcakes because they hold their form when baked. That meant that my 'melted chocolate' looked dryer than cookie dough..... That sort of chocolate only has one home in my kitchen - the bin!!

Below are the recipe and some pictures I took throughout the process. Both recipes are from Womens Weekly: Celebration Cakes.

Dark Chocolate Mud Cake: (for a 17cm round, 15cm square, 17cm octagonal)

360g Dark Chocolate (I used 70% Lindt dark chocolate, so unless you’re making it for dark chocolate lovers I'd used a lower %, or just a generic dark chocolate that is unlikely to be as bitter as this was)

225g Butter

1tbsp Dry Instant Coffee

3/4cup Water

3/4cup Brown Sugar (packed firmly)

1cup Plain Flour

1/4cup Self Raising Flour

2 Eggs

1/4cup Coffee Liqueur

Baking time: 2 hours

Moderate Slow oven (approx. 160 C)

1. Grease and line baking tin, ensuring that paper extends 5cm above the side of the tin

2. Combine chopped chocolate, chopped butter, coffee, water and sugar in a heat proof bowl, over a saucepan of simmering water.

Melted mix, before adding four etc.

Use a metal of plastic spoon or scraper for this, as anything porous, like wood, will absorb the water from the melting chocolate

And continuously remove from the heat and stir, then replace and stir etc. The bowl and the mixture will hold its own heat and will continue to melt the chocolate etc while off the stove. This will ensure you don't over heat your chocolate which will make it split (once its split, it won't come back) and it also ensures that you mixture isn't too hot and you can continue with step 3 without having to wait for it to cool.

3. Stir in sifted flours, lightly beaten egg and liqueur. (I use Muscat instead because that was all I had - still works really well). Pour into prepared pan.

With everything mixed in - doesn't look much different from previous step

4. Bake in a moderately slow oven for approx 2 hours, or until skewer comes out clean. If getting too dark and crusty, cover with foil halfway through

5. Cool in the pan before turning out. If trimming the cake, wait until completely cooked before trimming.

Cooked cake :) I greased and floured my tin rather than using baking paper (as we didn't have any)

White Chocolate Mud Cake (17cm round, 15cm square, 17cm octagonal)

165g Unsalted Butter

100g White Chocolate

1 1/3cup Caster Sugar

2/3cup Milk

1cup Plain Flour

1/3cup Self Raising Flour

1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence

1 Egg

Baking time: 1 3/4 hours

Moderately Slow oven (approx 160 C)

1. Grease and line tin, ensuring that the paper extends 5 cm above the edge of the tin

2. Combine chopped butter, chopped chocolate, sugar and milk in a heat proof pan above a saucepan of simmering water until chocolate and sugar are melted