Jean Paul Gaultier Chocolate Cake

I assume everyone watched last week’s chocolate cake spectacular episode of The Great British Bake Off- now I could lie and say that this was inspired by it, but it just wasn’t. How good was bread week though on that note? Everyone in my family’s already a bit bread batty. I am definitely making English muffins soon.

I made this cake for my friend’s birthday because she loves chocolate, but also because I wanted to make her a cake that felt a bit ‘classy’. Hence the inspiration and ganache. Basically I wanted the cake to look like a bottle of Jean Paul Gaultier perfume. It sort of just looks like a cake with boobs on but oh well.

Ingredients

Cake

6 ½ oz butter

11oz caster sugar

3 eggs

1 ½ oz cocoa

¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/3 cup water

2 apples, peeled and chopped

10oz self-raising flour

Ganache and decoration

180g Bourneville chocolate

180ml double cream

4tbsp cherry jam

Chocolate Betty Crocker Icing

Edible silver spray and balls

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C and prepare a traybake tin with parchment. This cake recipe works best in a food processor because it helps to finely chop the apples. If you don’t have one just do it by hand and make sure to cut the apples as small as you can.

Combine all of the cake ingredients, mixing until smooth.

Pour into the tin and bake for 50 minute to 1 hour or until cooked all the way through. Cool on a wire rack.

When the cake has cooled draw a rough shape of what you want onto a piece of baking parchment, then cut around it, saving the offcuts.

Crumble the offcuts up into a bowl and then mix with some of the chocolate Betty Crocker to form a cake-pop-esque texture.

Divide this into two and roll into equal balls to form the cake’s boobs.

Pop a bit of icing where you want to stick them to help adhere, then gently press the boobs down onto the main cake.

Next heat the jam up in the microwave until it’s melted, and then gently brush evenly all over the cake. This gives the ganache a surface to stick to.

To make the ganache put the cream and chocolate into a bowl over a pan of hot (not simmering) water and stir occasionally until it’s smooth and glossy. Leave the ganache for a few minutes to cool and thicken very slightly.

Pour it all over the cake, making sure to reach all the nooks and crannies of the cake. Leave this to set for a little while.

To decorate it I used a doily and the Dr Oetker silver spray to create a pattern that sort of (sort of) looks like a dress. Then I added edible silver balls just to add a little something something.