Best Ever Chocolate Cake for Queen Baking Club

For one of the Queen Baking Club challenges, our challenge recipe was Best Ever Chocolate Cake from this Queen recipe. 

As someone said on the Facebook site, this chocolate cake is so wonderfully chocolatey and rich, it could well be the Bruce Bogtrotter cake.

The recipe tells you how to convert it to cupcakes if you prefer.  I only made a half recipe as it was quite a big cake.

I think the photos speak for themselves.  Enjoy making this easy but delicious chocolate cake from Queen Fine Foods!

Iced VoVo Cupcakes - Queen Baking Club

This fortnight’s Queen Baking Club challenge is Iced VoVo Cupcakes to celebrate Australia Day on 26 January. Iced VoVos, for the uninitiated, are vanilla sugar cookies coated with two stripes of pink fondant on either side of the biscuit, with a stripe of raspberry jam in the centre, and the whole lot is sprinkled with coconut. 

Currently, Arnotts makes Iced VoVos, which are thought to have been invented by Hudsons Biscuits in 1904. Of course, there is a Kiwi challenger to the title, which you can read about here.

Queen Fine Foods’ recipe for Iced VoVo Cupcakes is online here. Just like the biscuit, it is a vanilla, raspberry and coconut flavoured confection. The cupcakes contain frozen raspberries and dessicated coconut, while the icing contains raspberry purée topped with dessicated coconut:

These cupcakes were a big hit at work - I received more compliments about these than I have about anything for ages.  Thanks for the recipe Queen!

You can join the Queen Baking Club on Facebook. There is a new challenge from the Queen recipe collection every fortnight.

Perfect Banana Cake with Maple Cinnamon Glaze - QBC

This fortnight’s Queen Baking Club challenge is Perfect Banana Cake - the recipe is here.

The Perfect Banana Cake is not too sweet and not too banana-y.

It is an easy cake to make, and Queen suggests a number of variations. I added the Maple Cinnamon Glaze, which added a delicious contrasting caramel layer to the cake.

This cake would be perfect with a cuppa for a mid-day treat.

You can join the Queen Baking Club on Facebook.

Vanilla, Ricotta and Almond Cake with Poached Fruit - Queen Baking Club

One of the loveliest cakes I have eaten in a while was a Vanilla,  Ricotta and Almond Cake with Poached Fruit, a recent Queen Baking Club challenge.  You can find the recipe online here.

This wonderful cake contains ricotta, which makes it smooth and moist; it contains almond meal, to give it a little nuttiness and texture; and lush berries, to give it sweetness and additional moistness.  The underlying cake is complemented by the poached fruit (in my case, pears) and berries on top, which make the cake decorative and add additional flavour.   

This is one of those cakes you have to walk away from so that you don't eat the whole thing.  It is such a moist and luscious cake that it is difficult to stop at just one piece.

This cake would be lovely served with cream, crème fraiche or icecream.  However, I served it just with a drizzle of the pear poaching syrup as suggested by Queen (but be warned, it is very sweet). 

If you like fruity cakes, I highly recommend making this one. 

Pumpkin Pecan Pie Muffins for Queen Baking Club

A recent Queen Baking Club challenge was Pumpkin Pecan Pie Muffins.  As the name suggests, these muffins were full of mashed pumpkin goodness, with added nuts for texture, and topped with an oaty streusel topping.

You can find the recipe for these delicious muffins here.

I substituted the pecans for walnuts because I had walnuts already in the pantry.  I also used some leftover streusel from another project and added some oats to give it texture and make it more like the recipe streusel.

These were absolutely delicious muffins, and I would make them again.  Given the dire wintry weather here at present, these muffins are a perfect way to warm the soul.

Vanilla Glazed Choc Chunk Hot Cross Buns - QBC

It is Good Friday today, heralding the start of the holy Easter season.  For Queen Baking Club this fortnight, the recipe was fittingly Vanilla Glazed Choc Chunk Hot Cross Buns.

These hot cross buns contain a traditional blend of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves) and raisins, together with the less traditional addition of chocolate chunks.  The finished buns are glazed with a syrup that is flavoured with vanilla.

Here are my buns just before going into the oven:

I found that I needed twice the amount of flour paste suggested in the recipe to make crosses for all of my buns, 20 in all.

Here is a yummy hot cross bun, fresh from the oven and spread with butter:

The smell of hot cross buns is amazing!  Loved these buns, and my colleagues seemed to like them too.

Queen's recipe is quite straight forward, should you wish to try making your own hot cross buns for today.

Wishing you a blessed Easter.

Rich Chocolate Mud Cake - QBC

This week, our operations manager, Sue, left the business after 18 years - quite an achievement!  She will be sorely missed.  We had a little soiree for her going away, and I was left in stitches by her dictionary of acronyms, which are very well suited to modern corporate life.  I won't share them here because some of them contain a blue word, but I hope to remember a few of them for my own future use.

Last fortnight's Queen Baking Club recipe, a Rich Chocolate Mud Cake, happened to coincide with Sue's departure, so I decided to make it for Sue as a leaving gift.

Here is the unadorned cake before I set to work dressing it up:

The recipe included a recipe for chocolate ganache, which I spread just on top of the levelled cake as directed.  I had made some fondant flowers and letters the night before, which I assembled on  top of the cake and kissed with some disco glitter:  

I think the cake looked pretty good, especially as I had made it over a couple of nights after work.  I think Sue was happy with it, and it tasted pretty good too (I did manage to grab a piece before it all disappeared, even though I had a meeting when they first cut the cake).  

To make the dark chocolate version of this mud cake (the Queen website gives directions for milk and white chocolate versions too), you will need:

1 tablespoon instant coffee
1 cup cold water
250 g butter, cubed
200g chopped dark chocolate
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
3 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup sifted cocoa
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

For the ganache

150g chopped dark chocolate
150ml thickened cream


Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Grease and line a 20cm round, deep cake tin.

Put the coffee and water into a medium saucepan over low heat, and stir to combine.  Add the butter, chocolate and sugar, and stir until just smooth.  Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

Combine the eggs, oil, milk and vanilla bean paste in a jug.  Add to the chocolate mixture and stir until just combined.

In a large bowl, combine the flours, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda.  Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the chocolate mixture, stirring to combine.  Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 1 and half hours or until cooked through.  Remove the cake from the oven and leave it to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the ganache, put the chocolate into a small heatproof bowl.  Heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat until it just simmers, then pour over the chocolate.  Allow it to sit for 3-4 minutes then mix until smooth.

Allow the ganache to thicken to a spreadable consistency before applying to the top of the cake.

Decorate as desired or serve as is!

On the radio:
Is This Love?  by Alison Moyet