A bit of fun for Fathers Day: a Ginger chocolate mud cake recipe

My Dad LOVES ginger. He'd include it in every meal if he were allowed. Recently I have been going through a bit of a domestic Goddess phase and have become a bit obsessed with making mud cakes. I started with a chocolate one, mastered that, so moved onto white chocolate with chocolate ganache (top deck!). I guess being a scientist makes me naturally experimental so I then made a choc mint one for my husbands birthday (I'll put that recipe up as well). It was only logical, then, that I make a ginger chocolate one for Fathers Day. For an extra kick I used Lindt chili chocolate to make the ganache. I got the original recipe from the Buderim Ginger website (here's the original if you'd prefer to follow it) but tweaked it slightly.

Ingredients:

Ginger Chocolate Mud Cake

• 250g unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup castor sugar
• 200g dark chocolate, chopped (I used Cadbury 70%, the original recipe asked for 250g but stupid chocolate manufacturers have reduced their bloc sizes and I forgot to add the extra 50g - still worked though!)
• 20ml whisky
• 185g self-raising flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup grated ginger (I used jar ginger from the spice section. If you used fresh ginger it would probably need further blending after grating)
• 1 1/2 cups hot water (I just used hot tap rather than boiled)

Ganache Icing

• 100g chocolate (I used Lindt Chili chocolate)
• 100ml cream (I use thickened cream. I have tried with normal cream but it turns out too runny)

Method

• Preheat oven 150c.
• Melt butter in saucepan. Add chocolate, sugar, whisky , ginger & hot water and stir over low heat until chocolate is just melted and mixture is smooth.
• Sift flour & cocoa together and gradually beat into chocolate mixture using a wooden spoon (I did this whilst the chocolate mixture was still warm - no need to wait for it to cool first).
• Beat eggs and vanilla then add to the chocolate mixture and continue to beat until well combined.
• Pour into buttered and lined 18cmx28cm cake tin or round spring form cake tin and tap to remove any bubbles (I scraped the top with a fork to pop any stubborn bubbles)
• Bake at 150c for between 45-90 mins or until skewer comes out almost clean (I checked at 45 mins but ended up going for 90 mins. The tip of the skewer still had a bit of batter stuck to it - I figured its better under cooked and moist than overcooked and dry). The cake might get some serious cracks - don't worry if it does...just fill them with ganache! 
• Leave to stand in the cake tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
• If you can make the cake the day before, do so as it is much easier to ice. If not, stick it in the fridge for as long as you can to cool it down.

Ganache

• put the cream and chocolate in a saucepan on the lowest heat and stir continuously until the chocolate has melted and they have completely mixed and there are no lumps.
• Turn the heat off and keep stirring the ganache each minute or so until it has cool to room temp.
• Do a test run and place a spoonful on the cake and see if it runs off. If it does, then it is probably still too warm.
• If the ganache is cool enough then ice from the middle. I always spoon it into the middle of the cake and let it slowly slide over the whole cake. If you want thick icing do this in two steps - ice the cake with half the ganache, stick it in the fridge for an hour or so then ice it again.

You are done! I usually keep the cake in the fridge until serving.

I might have forgotten to take a photo of the cake before we
got stuck in!

Mmmm. Can you see how thick the icing is!

Seriously, is this not the moistest looking cake you have ever seen?

So, how was my cake received? Well, everyone except Mum loved it. Unfortunately, Mum hated it. She doesn't actually like ginger so I thought I'd trick her to see if her dislike of ginger was all in her mind. I told her that it was just a chocolate cake but one bite in she knew otherwise!

The cake was super moist - more the consistency of a gooey brownie than a cake - which I loved. It was incredibly rich so start with a thin slice but then go back for seconds! I thought the chili chocolate ganache was a perfect accompaniment to the cake, though plain dark chocolate would also work. Or if you can find some ginger block chocolate, that would be perfect - though it would leave the ganache lumpy rather than smooth...but if it tastes delicious then who cares!

Do you have a great mud cake recipe to share. Or a genius flavour combination for me to try? My next experiment will be a chili chocolate mud cake for Dad and my birthday in a fortnight.

Ps I'll post my world famous choc mint mud cake recipe next weekend so stay tuned!