Serving size: Serves 10 or more
Cooking time: More than 2 hours
Course: Dessert
Favourite flavours: Cakes/baking

For more recipes, see this week's Woman's Day.
INGREDIENTS

250g butter, chopped
200g white chocolate, chopped
1½ cups caster sugar
1 cup milk
1¾ cups plain flour
1 cup self-raising flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
chocolate curls (see tip), rose petals to serve
WHITE CHOCOLATE GANACHE
1 cup cream
600g white chocolate, coarsely chopped
METHOD

SERVES 25



Preheat oven to moderately slow, 160°C . Lightly grease and line a 20cm square cake pan.

In a medium saucepan, combine butter, chocolate, sugar and milk. Stir over a low heat, without boiling, until smooth and combined.

Sift flours together and blend in chocolate mixture with eggs and vanilla.

Pour into pan. Bake 1¼ to 1½ hours, until cooked when tested. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

GANACHE: Place chocolate and cream in a small saucepan. Stir on low until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Transfer to a bowl and chill, covered, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes until of spreadable consistency.

Level cake if required using a sharp, serrated knife. Spread ganache over top and side of cake. Just before serving, pile chocolate curls on top (see tip). Scatter with petals.



TOP TIP

For chocolate curls, melt 1 cup white chocolate melts. Cut out several 8 x 10cm squares of baking paper. Spread or pipe (in a lacy pattern) a thin layer of chocolate onto paper in an oval shape. Fold over and carefully press tips of chocolate together to create a hollow loop. Support loops on an empty egg carton while hardening. Chill. Remove paper.
Use dark or milk chocolate if preferred.
For a larger cake, bake in a 23cm square pan and use 1½ quantities of ingredients. Cook for 20 minutes longer.

My tips (shared from a cake maker/decorator friend)
soak a strip of towel in cold water and wrap it around your baking dish, then tie with string, cover in foil and again tie. this creates a barrier that is moist heat instead of dry heat - it will create a much longer cooking time BUT, the sides of your cake will still be gorgeous and moist, just like the middle. it is divine! you will have to do the stab test with a skewer to see if it's cooked properly. i tend to drop the temp to about 140 and double (plus some) the cooking time

i also put another layer of the lining paper on top of the cake as it cooks - it stops the conical top forming. yes, you may have to trim the very top off the cake as it will be a bit dry (this will happen no matter what) - the difference is that it rises much more evenly, so don't have as much to cut off to level it




we are trialling this soon using dark chocolate instead of white. the white has been made many times in the past twelve months and is very simple and very tasty. we're going to take about a third of a cup of the plain flour out and replace with cocoa. recipes i've read replace the vanilla essence with instant coffee powder.

this wasn't much chop with milk chocolate - not sure if it was the chocolate we used (woolies brand) or whether it just didn't have enough oomph behind it. it just didn't have that rich chocolate taste that mud cake needs. on doing a bit more research we found that most recipes called for dark chocolate so we'll trial that before DD's birthday


ETA - if you google "white wedding mud cake" you should find this as a womans day recipe with a picture. if you use another search engine, it may not come up (i had this happen the other day)