Chocolate for a chocolate biscuit cake?

Wellyd

I usually use 2/3 Cadbury dairy milk chocolate and 1/3 bourneville chocolate to make a chocolate biscuit cake. However the last time I made it the chocolate was very grainy and it didn't taste as it normally does. So I've to make my cousins 21st birthday cake and she wants a choc biscuit cake and I'm wondering does anyone have a suggestion for chocolate to use? The party is a month away so I've plenty of time to try out any suggestions! Also I was also thinking of using the Odlums recipe if that helps!

phormium

Dairy Milk etc is not great for melting as it has a low cocoa solids content and stays very thick when melted and goes grainy easily.

Using the Odlums recipe try Lidl or Aldi chocolates, particularly anything from 50% cocoa solids up, I wouldn't really go below that, the golden syrup in the recipe will counteract the bitterness of the chocolate. Melt the butter and syrup gently first, do not overheat or you will get blobs of butter in your mix, take it off the heat and add in the broken up chocolate, leave it for a little while to melt, best not to add any extra heat once you have added the chocolate, it burns easily.

With the Odlums recipe I would make a size up from what you need and use the biscuit quantity for the smaller size, you get a more solid cake which is better for a celebration cake, otherwise there is a lot of biscuits to choc mix ratio and you get a cake with gaps and holes.

Wellyd

phormium wrote: »

Using the Odlums recipe try Lidl or Aldi chocolates, particularly anything from 50% cocoa solids up.

I've never used lidl or aldi chocolate as I'm not really a sweet eater. Is the quality/taste good enough? I really don't mind spending a bit on the chocolate as I want it to taste ok. I'd be absolutely mortified of the cake tasted of cheap chocolate.

phormium

The Aldi or Lidl good stuff will probably cost you more than Dairy Milk, if you want to buy really good stuff buy Lindt or similar but in my opinion the Aldi/Lidl is excellent quality.

To be honest Dairy Milk shouldn't even be called chocolate.

Really top quality would be Callebaut but you would probably have to buy that in bulk online, another option would be Belcolade from Stuff4Cakes or Decobake might have it.

huskerdu

The lidl chocolate called Fin carre is very good for all chocolate biscuit cake. ( I use a mixture of mlik and plain). Much better than Dairy Milk. The veg oil content in Dairy Milk is too high, it rarely melts well, and I don't think it tastes that good, anyway.

Mr. CooL ICE

Depends how you make it. For the chocolate, I make a basic caramel and blend in cadburys drinking chocolate, some 70% aldi chocolate and an egg and mix in the crushed biscuits. As long as the caramel; is done properly, it works a charm.

Midnight Sundance

LordChessington wrote: »

Depends how you make it. For the chocolate, I make a basic caramel and blend in cadburys drinking chocolate, some 70% aldi chocolate and an egg and mix in the crushed biscuits. As long as the caramel; is done properly, it works a charm.

Would you be able to post a recipe for your cake? It sounds delicious!!

Mr. CooL ICE

Sure. Here it is

rubadub

Wellyd wrote: »

I've never used lidl or aldi chocolate as I'm not really a sweet eater. Is the quality/taste good enough? I really don't mind spending a bit on the chocolate as I want it to taste ok. I'd be absolutely mortified of the cake tasted of cheap chocolate.

Dairy milk is a cheaply made chocolate with a high selling price. I would take the cheapest lidl stuff over it anyday. I think their very dearest is around the price of dairy milk. All the lidl hazelnut bars are 20%+ nuts, dairy milk whole nut is a scabby 13%

phormium wrote: »

To be honest Dairy Milk shouldn't even be called chocolate.

I think in some countries it cannot be legally called chocolate, like here some real cheapo brands are not allowed be called chocolate, they are called "chocolate flavoured", I think wagon wheels do not say they have chocolate.

NyOmnishambles

The Lidl/Aldi chocolate is perfect for a Chocolate biscuit cake, have used it loads of times with great results

pigtail33

I always use the Lidl J.D.Gross brand when making chocolate biscuit cake and never had any problems. I usually mix around 1/3 46% (I think) milk chocolate with 2/3 of either the 60% or 70% dark. I used to use only the dark, but I find for weddings etc., there is such a mix of people that not everyone is going to like the dark flavour that comes through when you use all 70%.

Mrs Fox

I find Lidl Belladorm range very good - both for baking and eating on it's own.

Tar.Aldarion

cocoa powder seems to work great, don't need chocolate.
Sample http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-biscuit-cake-1318

Faith

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

cocoa powder seems to work great, don't need chocolate.
Sample http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-biscuit-cake-1318

That recipe isn't actually a nigella one, and the measurements seems way off to me. The total weight seems to be about 350g, but the author claims it serves 20 people. I'd normally use 400g of chocolate alone for a CBC.

Tar.Aldarion

Never used it - shouldn't have put it up, just the person I know that makes biscuit all the time uses only cocoa and its much nicer than the chocolate ones I've tried.

phormium

I suppose it is all a matter of taste, the old recipes for biscuit cake use cocoa and butter or marg, sugar and some use an egg as well. Basically making your own chocolate, I would imagine this type of recipe goes back to when there was a poor selection of chocolate available.

I don't like that mix myself having had the job of judging a cake competition which had a lot of chocolate biscuit cake, cake overload! The mix I think is very liquid and is inclined to soak into the biscuits giving a soggy sort of texture. Just my opinion, others may like it that way.