Malteser and Milo Mudcake

After E's birthday we had a celebration in Geelong with my family.  I had decided to make a malty cake that had both Milo (Australia's chocolate malt powder) and Maltesers (malty balls encased in chocolate). It was good if you didn't eat it all at once.  I don't mean that I expect any individual would eat the whole cake.  I mean that its parts were greater than its sum or that the dark chocolate cake and ganache tasted much better without the sweet milk chocolate Maltesers and Chocolate Sticks.

Sigh!  You live and learn.  While I had thought the dark and milk chocolates would be fine together they just brought out the worst of each other - the bitterness of the dark and the toothaching sweetness of the milk. Next time I would sweeten the cake and ganache more with either sweeter chocolate or more sugar.  And I think the Milo taste might be brought out more with some sweetness.  I would also let the ganache have more time to cool so I could spread it on thicker.

I also baked the cake in a smaller tin in an effort to try and make it high enough for the chocolate sticks.  It contributed to this cake being really really soft and pudding-like.  It wasn't a bad thing.  Unless you wanted a nice neat slice. I did manage to get around the chocolate sticks being too tall despite my best efforts.  I just chopped them to size with my large chef's knife.  At least the cake looked pretty.

Sylvia and I had fun putting the maltesers on wire.  I took the cake in the car to Geelong in the boot, a little worried at how my new(ish) cake stand would go in the journey.  The cake arrived at my parents place safe and sound with bobbing Maltesers intact.

My mum had made a superb lunch with bread and dips, amazing battered and deep fried tofu (which Sylvia loved), a deconstructed green salad and a delicious rice and cauliflower salad.  Then we had a spread of desserts: jelly slice, pavlova with peppermint crisp, sponge cake, brownie, cheesecake and the Malteser and Milo Cake. 

The cake was based on a reliable mud cake recipe that I have made and adapted many time for special birthday cakes.  E says this is the sort of cake I always make and I agree.  Hence I am sending it to JibberJabber for the Love cake challenge in May which focuses on Signature Bakes.

More rich chocolate cakes on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Coconut and chocolate chunk cake (v)
Jill Dupleix's flourless chocolate cake (gf)
Melt and mix chocolate chunk mud cake
Nigella's Nutella cake (gf)
Walnut fudge cake
White chocolate mudcake

You can also find some amazing cakes at this article on 10 Spring Cakes that Will Make You Smile by Jacqueline Meldrum in the Readers Digest.

Malteser and Milo Mud Cake
(adapted from the Women’s Weekly Cakes and Slices Cookbook)

250g butter, chopped
150g dark chocolate, chopped*
1 cup hot water
1 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup milo
1/3 cup milk
1 13/4 cups plain flour*
scant 1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
2 eggs

Frosting*: 
Adapted from Baking with Gab

110g dark chocolate*
40g butter
2 tbsp hot water
1/3 cup milo

Decorating:
Maltesers
Chocolate fingers

Grease and line 22 cm round cake tin. Preheat oven to 160 C.

Combine butter, chocolate, water, sugar, cocoa and milo in a large bowl and microwave til melted (or melt on stovetop). The chocolate might seem a bit flecky but that is fine.  Add milk, flour, baking powder and salt,  It might have some small flour lumps but they seem to be ok once baked.  Now stir eggs in well until you have a glossy but quite thin batter.  Pour into prepared cake tin.

Bake 1 1/4 hours. The cake should be slightly gooey but it doesn't hurt to test with a skewer to chekc it is mostly done.  Sit at least 10 minutes before turning out (it can cool in the tin if you like).

To make frosting melt all ingredients together and leave to cool until it has thickened enough to spread.  This can take at least a few hours in the fridge.  Spread over cake and decorate with chocolate fingers around the edge and Maltesers on top.

If you have craft wires that you have never managed to find use for, feel free to put Malteserts on top but if you have to cut them to size like me, just watch out for anyone eating Maltesers straight off the wire and prevent any health and safety issues.

NOTES: I used 70% chocolate for the cake and the frosting.  This made for quite a bitter cake and I liked it when served without the maltesers and chocolate fingers.  However it did not contrast successfully with the maltesers and chocolate fingers so if I was to combine these again I would use either some milk chocolate or a sweeter dark chocolate or I would add more sugar.  I used Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour instead of regular wheat flour.  I had some frosting leftover - if I had cooled it longer I would have got more on the cake.

On the Stereo:
L'essentiel Sylvie Varten: Comme un garcon - qu'est ce que fait pleurer les blondes