A Tunnel of Fudge Bundt Cake...full of chocolate love!

With my dads birthday approaching I knew I needed to find a whopper of a cake to bake for the occasion. I clicked and searched and searched and clicked and finally stumbled across this genius recipe. You can find it here http://www.annies-eats.com/2012/04/27/tunnel-of-fudge-cake/

What a sheer revelation! Even the name of the cake caused a giant grin to spread from one ear to the other. How could this not go down a treat in a hungry household?

It was a breeze to make, popped it in the oven and did have a few moments of worrying whether it was overcooking or not. After all, we couldn't very well have a tunnel of fudge cake with no fudgy tunnel! Anyway I held off until the 45 minutes then whisked it out. I left it for the full half an hour in the tin and it came out so easy. The chocolate ganache was deliriously good and I had to stop myself from just pouring the whole lot into my mouth rather than putting it on the cake. I did find that the bottom was a little crispy when I took it out, however with the chocolate ganache this helped soften it up. What really set this cake over the edge was a 20 second blast in the microwave to ensure the middle was gooey and two scoops of vanilla bean ice-cream. Warm chocolate cake and vanilla ice-cream...bliss! I really did die and go to heaven. So did everyone else. If you make one chocolate cake...make this. Just make sure you don't scrimp at the supermarket. Buy good expensive chocolate, it makes the difference between an ordinary and an extraordinary cake. You wont regret it!

no bake fudge biscuits

so what does one do when one cannot bake...one doesn't bake but instead scours the internet for recipes that involve 'no baking' and what a plethora of recipes there are out there! i wanted to start with something simple, but yet that would have the maximum enjoyment factor and seriously taste good! so i went with a no bake fudge biscuit recipe. ok so naturally it was easy...no prizes for getting through this recipe without a hitch but it was just comforting to be able to be in my kitchen and create something.

so what do you do...

No Bake Chocolate Fudge Biscuits

3/4 c. butter

1/2 c. sugar

4 T. cocoa powder

2 T. milk (i used soya milk)

1 large packet of marie biscuits

melt the butter, sugar, cocoa powder and milk in a saucepan until the ingredients are combined. add biscuits and then spoon into a baking tin. pop in the fridge (or freezer depending on how long you're willing to wait!) and then cut into squares. devour shamelessly, of course!

yes, it's that easy! and the taste? very good, seriously more-ish and just a great chocolate pick me up to have in the fridge at those moments when you need...well a pick me up! you could definitely experiment with these by adding raisins, peanuts or chocolate chips. it might also be fun to try and make some healthy granola versions that would be good for breakfast. i could see this happening by using honey instead of the sugar. there's definitely a lot you can do with it! but fear not, i shall not bore you with posts of the next 20 different versions that i try...nope, i shall be moving onto other no bake investigations until the staff village here where i am living in Bali has built the communal oven that we have been promised. it's going to be an amazing project - an adobe oven that will be built by the community and will use wood. i can see there being a few disasters but otherwise it will be exciting to experiment with a truly earthy oven!

a-fudge-tasting we will go!

woke up this morning to a lovely spring day, with blue skies and bright (not warm though!) sunshine. hubby said he wanted to treat me to brunch so we headed out to one of my favourite local lunch spots - the country market in howth. after i was well-fed and content, i naturally wanted to make my way down to the local market that runs there every sunday. it's a great little market with lots of homegrown produced goods and for me, i always believe that it is good to support local producers.

anyway, let me get to what this post is really about...FUDGE, FUDGE GLORIOUS FUDGE! now, many of you might not be that familiar with fudge. but according to wikipedia...

Fudge is a type of candy, usually extremely rich and sometimes flavored with cocoa. It is made by mixing sugar, butter, and milk and heating it to the soft-ball stage at 240 °F (116 °C), and then beating the mixture while it cools so that it acquires a smooth, creamy consistency.

sounds good, right? well, at our local market there is a stall there every week called Man of Aran Fudge and i have been eyeing it for some time because the fudge looks amazing...more like bars of fragrant soap than fudge. i guess i have grown up thinking of fudge in the traditional sense with that creamy brown colour so to see it like this is a real wonder and stimulation for the senses!

peppermint & choc chip fudge

cappucino fudge

strawberries and cream and banana chocolate twirl fudge

maple nut, nutty choc fudge and vanilla rum raisin

so i took the plunge today and bought a box. you get a box for 9.50 euros and you get to choose 4 different flavours to fill the box up with. it's a real tough decision...REAL tough as there is so much that catches your eye that you just constantly seem to get distracted. because we were buying it as a gift for my mum, i went with flavours that i felt she would enjoy and eventually settled on - banoffi fudge, cappucino fudge, bailey's fudge and maltesers fudge. the pieces were sliced up and fit perfectly in the box.

then came the taste test. it was hard to choose which one to try first because they all looked so creamy and delicious...but we went for the malteser fudge first...

this was quite sweet, but definitely had a distinct malteser taste off it. the fudge was very luscious and creamy and had a delightful melt-in-your mouth quality to it. this was my favourite. we then moved on to the cappucino fudge...

this was my mum's favourite. she loves cappucinos and will always have one when we are out and she felt that this had a lovely strong taste of cappucino. we both also really liked the way it looked...like an actual cup of cappucino! next came the banoffi fudge...


this looked delightful with the caramel coloured swirls in the yellow fudge. when you tasted it, initially you received an overwhelming taste of banana...i mean, i like banana and all, but when the taste is really overpowering sometimes i find it a bit too much. but then as the fudge started to melt, you tasted the toffee flavour coming through. i would have preferred to taste more of the toffee though because that's the part i really like about banoffi! finally we moved on to the bailey's fudge....

this was perhaps the least interesting taste-wise out of all the fudge. the baileys flavour definitely could have been stronger. to me it tasted rather bland and as if there wasn't much baileys in there which was kinda disappointing when that is the flavour it's being sold as.

all in all, the fudge was very enjoyable. however, i don't think i could eat heaps and heaps of it at a time because it is sweet and luscious. a box like this would probably last me awhile and i could enjoy a cube with a cup of tea or coffee. or maybe i might try chop some up in a cupcake...now there's a thought :)