Wednesday 23 May 2007

Australia's Biggest Morning Tea - Charity Cake Competition (Part I)

Tomorrow is the official day for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea , one of the Cancer Council Australia’s most popular and largest fundraising events. Every year, one of the departments at work organises a Charity Cake Competition where home baked cakes are judged according to various categories and then auctioned off. All the proceeds go to the Cancer Council.

... As if I needed an excuse to bake ...

I enjoy baking for charity. My first charity bake was when I was 14 years old and I baked 37 heart-shaped chocolate mud cakes in three straight days. I was chocolate phobic for almost a week after that. There is such a thing as too much chocolate, I discovered.

I have been thinking for a week about what I should bake. I had to take into account my lack of time this week, so the cake cannot be too time consuming or complicated. And it had to be unique. So, I decided to make a German cake from the Alsace region - Rotweinkuchen (Red Wine Cake) I got the recipe from my German friend, Eva of Sweet sins. She has many great recipes.

This was also an opportunity to show off my new toy – a cast aluminum traditional cake mould, one of the cool gadgets that Em gave me for my birthday two weeks ago. Wouldn't you agree that this mould is destined for great cakes? When I first laid my eyes on it, my mind started to go wild thinking of all the beautiful cakes I could make.
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However, I have to say that I am a little disappointed with the final product ….
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You know how sometimes you have a certain vision or fantasy of how your cake will turn out but in the end, the reality didn’t quite match up? Well, this is one such instance. It was not the mould’s fault though. It was the glaze’s fault…. and the baker. Oh well, at least this will be for a good cause. And I know that it will taste good because I've had rave reviews the last time I made it. Photos of the cake competition that was held today, the results and the cake auction will be in my next post, so stay tuned!

~ Rotweinkuchen ~
German Red Wine Chocolate Cake

200g butter
200g caster sugar
4 eggs
200g flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp baking powder, heaped
125ml red wine
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp cocoa, heaped
100g dark chocolate, finely chopped
icing sugar for dusting or chocolate glaze

1
Cream butter with sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time,
and mix well.

2
Stir in cinnamon, vanilla essence, wine and chocolate till just combine (do not over mix). The mixture will look mushy.

3
Fold in the flour, cocoa and baking powder.

4
Pour into prepared baking tin and bake in a pre-heated oven (150 degrees Celsius, fan-forced) for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

5
Let cool on a rack and dust with icing sugar or chocolate glaze. Serve with fresh cream or ice-cream if desired.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it looks good, no matter what the baker thinks ;)
And you know what's funny? If you compare your cake with the picture of the opera house that you just posted... well, there are similarities ;)

Janet said...

Nora, I think your cake looks fabulous with the shiny chocolate glaze. I was going to make the same reference to the Sydney Opera House as Em...but she beat me too it.

Patricia Scarpin said...

Nora, I think the cake looks fantastic. So beautifully shaped. And I've never had anything baked that call for wine - I'm intrigued! :)

Nora B. said...

Em & janet, thanks for the kinds words. Yes, it does resemble the Opera House. I had trouble glazing the cake because I have never tried to glaze a moulded cake before. Unfortunately, the glaze did not remain shiny. You'll see it in the next post.

Patricia - Thanks, yes the shape is beautiful. If you like red wine, you should give this a go!

Anonymous said...

Red wine and chocolate - what a fabulous combination! Oh, this is too fabulous not to try.

Eva said...

Well,I definitely have to go along with all the other comments - to me, this cake looks just perfect! As for the glaze, I had very good results using the chocolate glaze Molly of Orangette uses for her coconut macaroons!

Aimée said...

This looks divine, you should be very happy with it!

Warda said...

Are you kidding Nora. This cake looks perfect to me. Love the shape of you cake mold and I bet everybody at the charity will be intrigued with your beautiful german cake.

Nora B. said...

Shirley - Will this recipe finally convince you to try to bake...? I'll even take time off to supervise you ;-)

Eva - Thanks for translating the German recipe for me. I think this was the first few cakes that you photographed before you started your blog. I'll try the glaze you suggest for next time.

Aimee - Thanks for dropping by! You are right, I should be happy with it. p/s: you have lots of yummy recipes on your blog!

Rose - The mould is great so I'll have to think of other cakes to make with it. Yes, I was pleased that people at the cake auction were very intrigued by it. More about that in my next post.

Freya said...

I think that the cake looks stunning, and em is right, it looks like the Sydney Opera House!
A book you might like that has some great recipes for this shape tin, is The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather. Great bundt tin recipes!

Nora B. said...

Hi Freya, thanks for the suggestion about the book. That will come in handy because I really love my new cake mould.