Chocolate Gateau:

I made this ‘Brooklyn Blackout Cake’ from the first Hummingbird Bakery book for a Eurovision party. It’s a rich chocolate sponge that uses bi-carb of soda to give it that intense dark colour.

The interesting part of this cake was the frosting which was a bit like a cold chocolate custard (thickened with cornflour) that solidified as it cooled.  Quite weird to work with and you have to work quick as once it starts cooling it forms a skin which is no longer maleable (try and smooth it and it tears)

I blitzed the cake sponge that I had sliced off the top of the cake and blew/threw the resulting crumbs onto the side of the cake to decorate.  I made a protective ‘cabin’ out of  cereal boxes and newspaper within which to do this to try and prevent crumb-ageddon in the kitchen.  It did partly help but we were still finding fine sand like cake crumbs for days to come.

To create the decoration on top of the cake I printed a copy of the Eurovision logo off the internet.  I transferred this onto card (using baking parchment as tracing paper) and cut it out using a craft knife to create a template.  I placed this on top of the cake and dusted with icing sugar.