Chocolate Crispie Celebration Cake

Two disasters in one night left me in tears on Tuesday… I started questioning whether I really am any good at this baking and cooking lark?

Here is the first of the disasters (I’ll keep the second disaster for another day). It was a cake that I made for a friend’s birthday (she loved it). I’m bringing this to Angie’s to cheer myself up on this glorious Fiesta Friday.

The recipe was meant to be the actual celebration cake a disaster inspired by Jamie Oliver’s celebration cake in his new book Comfort Food. I started by making the spongy brownie cake part:

250 g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
150 g quality dark chocolate (70%)
2 tablespoons olive oil
300 g caster sugar
6 large free-range eggs
150 g self-raising flour
4 tablespoons quality cocoa powder

So I melted the chocolate, butter, sugar and oil in a bowl over a saucepan. Then I added the eggs one by one and finished by sieving the flour and cocoa in. I popped it in the oven for 50 minutes, took the cake out of the oven, and left it to cool…. When I got around to slicing it IT WASN’T COOKED! What was I thinking? I had checked it with a skewer so I don’t know how I managed it?

I went bananas….. I remade another sponge (having tripled the quantities in this chocolate muffin recipe) and carried on with Jamie’s idea. I made two sponges and sliced them both in half, giving me four layers.

I kept going and made the crispy layer to put it on the slices of cake, but I decided to use whipped cream (with vanilla) instead of the nougat frosting. I was worried that it wouldn’t travel well to work the following day.

For the chocolate rice layer:
300 g quality dark chocolate (70%), plus extra to serve
1 large knob of butter
1 splash of double cream
100 g puffed rice cereal

I finished the cake off with milk chocolate and white chocolate curly shards.

I was exhausted by this stage. Was it worth it?

No.

So the following day I was feeling crap about the cake, I was met with some really ungrateful people. They either refused my cake because they “couldn’t eat that because of all the calories, no wonder you say you’re putting weight on…” Or happily took a slice and then didn’t finish it.

It was a celebration cake; the birthday girl cut extremely thin slices because it was so rich AND to ensure that everyone that wanted a slice, got one. So do people not realise that it’s an insult to throw my cake in the bin?

Why are people so mean?

What happened to people’s manners?

And why have I started to question myself…. I thought I loved baking?

Melissa xx