White Chocolate Mudcake

I made this for my birthday cake (yes, for those of you who know when my birthday is, it was some time ago now, I know, give me a break, I've been busy!... but mostly lazy ;-)  ) and it was a superb choice if I do say so myself! ;-)

Serves: 16 (or less depending on portion sizes of course! For instance, it would only provide 8 of what I call 'Dad' slices)

Ingredients:
300g white chocolate
200g butter
1 cup milk
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs, lightly beaten 
2/3 cup self-raising flour
1 cup plain flour

Sour Cream & White Chocolate Ganache (topping)
200g white chocolate
88g sour cream 

Method:
Step 1: Preheat oven to 145degreesCelcius (160 for conventional)

Step 2: Line base and sides of a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper (I don't know if I'm the only one who does this, but I like to either wipe butter on the tin or spray it with non-stick cooking spray, so that the baking paper actually sticks to it and stays in place). Alternatively, if you (like me) don't want to go to that much effort (can't be bothered) I like to use a silicone cake 'tin' with a light spray of non-stick oil spray.

Step 3:  Place chocolate, butter, milk and sugar in a large saucepan over low heat stirring frequently.

Once butter and chocolate have melted, remove from heat and stir until completely smooth. (Note: I started with rock hard utter, so decided to try and soften it in the microwave... well long story short it was already alf melted when I started, so this step didn't take long! The point is, its not the end of the world if the butter is melted when you put it in...)

Set aside and let it cool at room temperature for 15min.

Step 4: Add vanilla and eggs to chocolate mixture and stir until well combined.

Step 5: Sift flours together in a large bowl. Now the original recipe says to add one cup of chocolate mixture to the flour and stir until a paste forms, in order to prevent lumps... The first time I made this, thats what I did and what did I get? Lumps. So the second time I made it, I added a bit of the chocolate mixture, gave it a stir, added a bit more, stirred and so on. And, what do you know, no lumps.

Step 6: Pour into prepared cake tin and then bake for 1 hr 10min to 1hr 20min (knife inserted into centre will come out clean when its ready).

Step 7: Lick bowl and saucepan clean (unsurprisingly, this is my favourite step...)

Step 8: Loosely cover cake with greaseproof paper or a clean tea towel and allow to cool to room temperature in pan.


The Ganache. So its well known that I am not exactly a fan of sour cream, and I admit I was rather sceptical of putting a sour cream based icing onto my birthday cake for fear I wouldn't like it. But. Gosh was it gooooood :-) So for all my fellow sour cream dislikers, don't worry, it doesn't taste like sour cream.

Step 9: Melt chocolate in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring frequently. When chocolate has completely melted, remove from heat and stir in sour cream. Use immediately, or if your ganache is quite runny, set it aside at room temperature to thicken slightly before using.

Bonus: I made some (oddly shaped) chocolate freckles to decorate the cake with; just melted some milk chocolate, poured it into a foil-lined container, poured hundreds & thousands over it and left it to set at room temperature. Easy & yummy!