Chocolate Ripple Cake
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 20 minutes plus 30 minutes freezing time
Cooking time: 0 minutes
This cake is best made 1 day ahead of time
- 250g/8.8ozs Choc Ripple Biscuits
- 180g/6ozs cream cheese, cubed
- 50g/1.7ozs icing or powdered sugar, sifted
- 500ml/1 pint thickened or pure cream, chilled
- 1/2 cup/125ml/4flozs chocolate liqueur or milk (optional)
- Raspberries, toasted coconut and white chocolate shards to decorate
Step 1 - First beat the cream cheese with the beater attachment until smooth and there are no lumps. Then add half of the cream and beat until smooth. Then add the other half of the cream and beat until smooth. Switch to a whisk attachment and add the sieved icing sugar and whisk until you get firm peaks. Remove 1 cup of the stabilised cream and place in the fridge.
Step 2 - Take a cake board and spread cream on the board in the shape of your cake. I made mine into a heart shape (sort of!). Dip the cookie into the liqueur very briefly and let excess drip off. Spread some cream on the bottom of the cookie and place on the cake board. Then stack cookies spread with cream on top. Repeat until you've used all of the cookies.
Step 3 - Spread the remaining cream around the cake filling in any gaps. I find it easiest to do this using a piping bag to get into any nooks. Smooth over the top and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. Then spread the remaining cup of cream on top smoothing it out. Place in fridge overnight or for 6 hours.
Step 4 - Before serving, sprinkle toasted coconut and add raspberries and white chocolate shards on top.
I'm bring this chocolate ripple cake to a Mother's Day picnic coming up this weekend where we will have Mr NQN's mother Tuulikki and his sisters who are mothers as well as me (dog mum). Speaking of mothers, Queen Viv who has been mistaken for my mother in the past, recommended a movie to us to watch with Teddy and Milo. It's called Flow and is a Latvian cartoon where there is no dialogue and features animals. It has won a lot of awards including an Academy Award. She hooked me in by saying that apparently some animals love watching it and there's a capybara in it who is the hero and well I absolutely love capybaras. The animation style is quite unique and looks like early gaming and she described it as the opposite of Pixar animation which is much more detailed. And she hooked Mr NQN in because it was made using open source software.
One night we sat down after dinner to watch it; Teddy was by Mr NQN's side and Milo by mine. They were both very intrigued and even sat in front of the television to watch it closer. However after half an hour Teddy started to nap and Milo wandered off. He came back towards the end at the climax of the movie. And not to spoil anything but when the capybara was in a bit of strife I was worried and it showed in my body language. I guess I have never really been upset in front of Milo before because he sprung into action. He looked around at me alarmed and started pawing at me as if to say "Mummy are you ok?" Dogs are really so emotionally connected to us and I tried to explain to my sweet Milo that I was worried about the capybara more than anything else. He watched the rest of the movie with one eye on me and the other eye on the action.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever seen Flow? And have you ever tried making a choc ripple cake?