Surprise Surprise

Cheers!

My in-laws are about to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.  The kind of celebration that calls for a party, a surprise party in fact.  After several months of planning and cake deliberation my husband and I found ourselves greeting guests before the big reveal.  It was so difficult keeping the secret for over three months, I'm amazed that nobody gave it away, especially as we were expecting over 80 guests.

Melbourne certainly knows how to turn on the heat and it cranked up to 38 degrees on the day of the party.  So with water coolers and ice and the ready we collected the surprise guests of honour and headed to the venue.

15 litre water cooler - perfect for those 38 degree days

Now for the cake: I decided to make a mega version of the squared chocolate cake recipe in the Blackbird Bakery cookbook. The recipe calls for a variety of gf flours, the majority of which I have never used before.  

The recipe also calls for 3 tablespoons (YES 3 TABLESPOONS) of vanilla extract which I expected to overpower the cake entirely. To my surprise and delight the combination of flours produced a mealy cakey texture with a slight essence of vanilla. 

Once the cake is baked it is brushed with chocolate liquer until almost half a cup of liqiud is absorbed by the layers. The liquer adds another dimension to the flavour which is then topped off with chocolate icing. 



 To achieve the glazed finish on the icing the recipe calls for corn syrup which I was amazed to find in my local supermarket, I think it is used a lot in America but this was the first time I have used the product.

I have recently discovered the Wilton decorating section in Spotlight (what took me so long). As the cake was covered in chocolate icing and an edible image I decided to tone down the decorations and in the end I went with the simple dainty hearts around the base of the cake.  The edible image was purchased from threesweeties in Glenhuntly, they did a terrific job and the image looking suitably vintage.

To close this post I propose a toast - to my inlaws - congratulations on 40 years of marriage and to the many years of enjoyment yet to come! here here!