Chocolate Mint Cake

Shortly after moving back to Aberdeen from London, and newly pregnant with my first daughter, I found myself rushing about after work to make cupcakes for my best friend’s party that night.   Thinking I’d have plenty time after work to make them, I hadn’t counted on the having to talk to the Scotsman newspaper about the terrorist threat to St Fergus Gas Terminal north of Aberdeen. Taken slightly by surprise, I was caught in the middle of baking. The result was me with an icing bag in one hand and a phone in the other, getting mixed up and talking to the journalist through a piping bag while getting bright pink icing in my hair and trying to ice the cupcakes with my cell phone!  You can have a look at the actual article here:-

 http://www.akegroup.com/documents/intel/AKE_thescotsman.pdf

Back to this week and I’ve thankfully had no similar problems. I’ve been reading through the handwritten recipe collections of my husband’s mum and his granny, and decided it would be fun to do a retro recipe.  My husband chose this one (which I have only tweaked slightly) for Chocolate Mint Cake, a tray bake and favourite of his from when he was wee.  I hope you like it and depending on your response I think I might do a retro recipe once a month!

The green food colouring available today is not the nuclear green I remember as a child, and I’ve swapped the cooking chocolate which is traditionally used to top this ‘fancy piece’ with a mixture of good quality dark and milk chocolate. The taste brings back lots of happy memories and is delicious – yum. 

Chocolate Mint Cake

Ingredients

110g Self Raising Flour

20g Corn Flakes

110g Margarine

70g Desiccated Coconut

60g Sugar

2 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder

500g Icing Sugar

Peppermint Flavouring

Green Food Colouring

300g Chocolate to top (dark, light or a mixture of the two)

Method

Preheat your oven to 160 ^oC (140^oC fan) and grease or line a swiss roll tin.

Melt the margarine in a large pan and add the flour, coconut, cornflakes, sugar and cocoa powder mixing them well.

Press the mixture into the prepared tin and put in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes.  Set it aside until cold.

In a large bowl, sieve the icing sugar and mix with small amounts of water until you have a stiff but pliable mixture, adding the peppermint flavouring and green colouring to your aesthetic liking and taste.  If your icing mixture gets to thin once you have added the flavour and colour, simply add some more sieved icing sugar until you get the right consistency.

Pour and spread on top of the cold base and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water (much more reliable than the microwave) and pour over the top of the glorious green layer allowing to cool and set completely before cutting into square or slices.