Why should you invite a mushroom to your birthday?

Hands up all of you who thought I was going to go with that corny old “Because he’s a fun guy” schtick?  Well boo to you!!!  My jokes are never that bad.  Are they?  I’m actually terrible with jokes.  The only one I can ever remember is “Why are pirates called pirates?”  And the answer is “Because they are”  Only you have to say the “are”  in that pirate voice.  “Arrrre”  See?  The only joke I know and it’s not even funny written down.

So, mushrooms, parties…I made a cake!!!  In fact I made lots of little cakes.  And they looked kinda like mushrooms.  And you should definitely have them at your next party!

Oh and the taste?  So good. Chocolate, marzipan and sour cherry jam….how could you go wrong?

Have I ever mentioned exactly how much I love marzipan?  Well, it’s this much – I ate the left over marzipan from making this recipe by itself.  Then I bought another pack and ate that by itself too.  Then I felt sick for about three days.  But it was worth every minute of it.

My mini mushroom cakes are based on a recipe from The A-Z of Cooking which has it as one large cake. This is from the Children’s Favorites sections which means we have hit C. Why does it feel like I have been cooking from this book for YEARS?  How can we be only up to C?

To be honest, I’m not sure of the validity of the mushroom cake as a child’s favourite.  Teddy Bears, Thomas The Tank Engine, one of those awesome Barbie Pool Party Cakes – hmm whatever, yes and definitely yes, yes yes! (Note to self, Make Barbie Pool Party Cake for next year).  I’m not sure there’s many children asking their mum to bake them the fungi cake. Not even back in the hippy ’70’s.

Mushroom Cake – Original

You start with one big or lots of little chocolate cakes.  I used the recipe from The A-Z of Cooking but you could use any chocolate cake you wanted.  This would be A-MAY-ZING using your favourite brownie recipe too.

Here is the original recipe, my slightly tweaked recipe is below.

Spread the top your cakes with the sour cherry jam,

Roll out your marzipan until quite thin, then cut into rounds large enough to drape over the top and sides of your cake.  Trim additional marzipan so the marzipan is flush with the bottom of the cake.  Turn over so the uncovered part of the cake is now facing the top.

Roll another long thin piece of marzipan.  Spread with the sour cherry jam and roll up, lengthways.  Cut this into 4-5 pieces depending on how long you want your stalk.  Repeat until you have the same number of stalks as you do cakes.

Pipe or spread your icing onto your cakes.  I spread mine and made the mushroom gills with a toothpick.

Then place your stalks onto the middle of each cake.You may need to hold these in place with a little dob of jam or icing.

Despite their dubious credentials as a children’s favourite, these mushroom cakes are just adorable and so tasty, and you know what would make then even better and certainly not kid friendly?  Douse the cakes with a little bit of kirsch before adding the jam.

Now that’s what I call a magic mushroom cake!

Three sleeps to Pieathalon!!!!  I can hardly wait

Have a great week!!!

Mini Mushroom Cakes

Print Recipe

Delicious morsels of chocolate cake, cunningly disguised as mushrooms!

• Author: Taryn Fryer
• Yield: 8 1x

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

For the Cake

• 75g dark (70%) chocolate
• 2 tbsp milk
• 125g self-raising flour
• pinch of salt
• 100g butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 250g packet of ready to roll Marzipan, I used Blackwood Lane
• 3 tbsp sour cherry (or your favourite flavour) jam

Icing

• 50g butter
• 100g icing sugar, sifted
• 25g dark chocolate melted in 2 tsp hot milk

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 190*C.
2. Grease and flour your cupcake cases
3. Melt the chocolate in the milk over a gentle flame. Leave to cool.
4. Sift the flour, salt and cinnamon together.
5. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
6. Add the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of flour in between.
7. Add the chocolate milk mixture then another spoon of flour.
8. Once that is mixed in, fold in the remaining flour.
9. Pour the mixture into the prepared cupcake cases, place in the oven and bake for around 20 minutes until risen and a skewer comes out clean.
10. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
11. Roll out the marzipan to about 3mm thick. Flatten an empty cupcake case and use as a template to cut circles out of the marzipan.
12. Melt the jam over a low heat then spread it over the top and sides of each cupcake.
13. Then drape the marzipan circles over the top and sides of each cupcake. You may need to trim the edges so they are flush with the edges of the cake.
14. Turn the cake upside down so the marzipan layer is now on the bottom.
15. Roll the scraps of marzipan into a long thin stip. Spread this with the cherry jam and roll up lengthways so you now have a long thin roll.
16. Cut this into smaller pieces to make the mushroom stalks. Set these aside for the moment.
17. To make the icing, cream together the butter and sugar then gradually beat in the melted chocolate. Beat well then chill until the mixture is firm.
18. Pipe or spread on top of each cake marking into grooves to resemble the gills of a mushroom.
19. Place the stalk in the centre.
20. Enjoy!

Notes

• The number of cakes you will get will depend on the size of your cupcake liners.

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 8