Bruce Bogtrotter's Cake

“The cake was fully eighteen inches in diameter and it was covered with dark-brown chocolate icing” (118).

Roald Dahl’s books are filled with enticing yet also disgusting descriptions of weird and fantastical food from Glumptious Globgobblers to Boiled Slobbages. There is even a  Roald Dahl cookery book, Roald Dahl’s Completely Revolting Recipes, which is filled with instructions on how to make the interesting and sometimes disgusting sounding foods from Dahl’s books and actually make them taste yummy! It is a fun cookery book for kids with many simple and straight forward recipes that they can help along with in the kitchen. Much of the food would be perfect for kids’ parties and you could even have a party on the theme of one of Dahl’s books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The book recommends a great menu for a kid’s party on page 112. I decided to make the suggested birthday cake using the recipe for Bruce Bogtrotter’s Cake from Matilda.

Ingredients

• 225g good quality plain chocolate (although I did use milk chocolate, it was cooking chocolate and worked fine!)
• 175g unsalted butter, softened
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 tbsp (60 ml) plain flour
• 6 eggs, separated

 Coating:

• 225g good quality plain chocolate 
• 225g double cream 

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
2. Grease and line the cake tin with greaseproof paper.
3. Melt the chocolate in a pyrex bowl, over saucepan of a simmering water or on a low heat in a microwave.
4. Mix in the butter and stir until melted.
5. Add the flour, sugar and lightly beaten egg yolks.
6. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.
7. Gently fold half of the whites into the chocolate mixture, mixing thoroughly.
8. Then carefully fold in the remaining whites.
9. Cook for approx. 35 minutes. There will be a thin crust on top of the cake, and if tested with a skewer the inside will appear insufficiently cooked but don’t worry as this is the character of the cake and it gets firmer as it cools. This cake is deliciously moist and light.
10. Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.
11. When cool enough to handle remove from the cake tin and discard the greaseproof paper.
12. In a pyrex bowl over a saucepan of simmering water melt together the chocolate and cream, stirring occasionally until the chocolate is fully melted and blended with the cream.
13. Allow to cool slightly.
14. The cake is prone to sinking slightly in the middle so place upside down for coating. (My cake definitely sunk in the middle!)
15. With a palette knife spread the chocolate coating all over the cake.
16. Allow to set in a cool place before serving.

Recipe from: Dahl, Felicity, Josie Fison and Ann Newman. Roald Dahl’s Completely Revolting Recipes. London: Jonathan Cape, 2011.

Here’s my results

Why not add some smarties to make it more colourful for a birthday cake and don't forget the candles!

This cake is a mouth-watering piece of party food and I’m sure anyone can see how Bruce Bogtrotter in Matilda cannot resist eating Miss Trunchbull’s private cake from the kitchen which is described as being “rich and delicious,” (116) and made from “real butter and real cream” (115). Miss Trunchbull decides to punish him for stealing her special chocolate cake at an assembly in front of the whole school. She gets her shrivelled looking cook to produce an eighteen inches in diameter version of the cake and gives Bruce the challenge of eating all of the giant cake as punishment for his gluttony. Here food is used as a punishment. Amazingly, Bruce manages to eat all of the cake and triumphs in the “battle between him and the mighty Trunchbull” (124). Thus, using food as a punishment backfires on Trunchbull and only angers her more! Instead Bruce’s triumph over Trunchbull deems him a hero to his fellow students who cheer him on, “Well done Brucie! Good for you, Brucie! You’ve won a gold medal, Brucie!” (125).

From: Dahl, Roald. Matilda. London: Puffin, 2007.

As a recipe for a birthday cake Bruce’s cake can be used for further celebrations but hopefully at parties instead of as a form a punishment used by Headmistresses who put little children in the chokey!!

A Late Christmas!

I know Christmas has just passed but since it’s still January I thought I could get away with showing you a Christmas cake recipe which you could use next year. Although Christmas parties are not usually just for children, children are definitely a main focus at Christmas time. Many grown ups love Christmas too but it’s the kids that have that extra excitement especially for all the presents Santa will bring them! This recipe for Rudolf Cupcakes consists of quite a bit of chocolate but the cakes do have some fruit in them, so aren't a completely unhealthy option! These cakes would be a great treat for kids at a Christmas party and you’ll find the grown ups won’t be able to resist them either! The recipe could even be adapted to make different animal cupcakes for different party themes throughout the year.

Rudolf Cupcakes

Serves 12

Prep 20 mins

Cook for 20 mins

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp milk
• 2 eggs
• 150g Stork (at room temperature)
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Zest of 1/2 small orange
• 45g dried cranberries, chopped
• 300g chocolate-flavour frosting or you can make your own butter icing
• 4x Curly Wurly chocolate bars
• 12 glacé cherries
• 24 raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350F/Gas 4. Line a deep muffin tin with 12 paper cases.
2. Places the milk, eggs, Stork, caster sugar, flour, baking powder and zest in a mixing bowl. Beat using an electric hand whisk. Stir in the dried cranberries and spoon into the cases.
3. Bake for 20 minutes until well risen and lightly golden. Cool on a wire rack.
4.  To decorate, spread the frosting over the cooled cupcakes. Slice each Curly Wurly in half widthways, then cut into lengths to make antlers. Push the antlers into the cupcakes, place a cherry on each cake to make a nose and put 2 raisins on each cake to make the eyes.

Recipe from Morrisons Christmas magazine, 2011.

For those of you with a sweet tooth you can make the cakes chocolatey instead of fruity.

To make chocolate cakes:

Add 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder at stage 2 of the method instead of the orange zest and cranberries.

To make your own chocolate flavoured butter icing:

Ingredients

• 125g butter
• 250g icing sugar, stifted
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Beat the butter with half the icing sugar until smooth.

Blend 2 tablespoons cocoa powder with 2 tablespoons boiling water. Cool, then add to the mixture with 1 tablespoon of milk and the rest of the icing sugar. Beat again till smooth.

Recipe from: Handslip, Carole. The Sainsbury Book of Children’s Party Cooking. London: Cathay Books, 1985. Page 93.

Tips

• You need a very sharp knife to cut the Curly Wurlys as they’re stiff to cut but mind your fingers when you’re doing it as it can be quite tricky.
•  Try to use the rounder raisins in the packet as otherwise you end up with evil looking reindeers!

Here’s how my reindeer cakes turned out this Christmas…

I went for the option of chocolate cakes and made my own butter icing.

Unfortunately, the process was a bit messy as my helper, being my dearest Mum, got a bit over confident with the electric whisk and we ended up with cake mix all over the kitchen! And all over her! This being a lesson that children should always be supervised in the kitchen!

Hopefully you’ll have a less messy experience baking these cakes! 

An Introduction...

Welcome to my blog.

I'm Claire and although I'm nearly 21 I'm a big kid at heart and love nothing more than children's books. My passion for children's literature is what made me decide to write a blog about children's party food. A child's birthday party is one of the most important days of the year for them. They wait all year for the day when they can stop saying they're six and three quarters and will get lots of presents. The birthday cake is the main feature of the day (except for the little birthday monster, of course!) as I can remember myself when I was growing up I loved choosing which cake to have and waited eagerly for the day I could blow out the candles and make a wish!

However, party food isn't just made for birthdays. There's Christmas, Halloween, Easter and tea parties, not forgetting a picnic on a summer's day (when the sun decides to shine in England!) and so there are many occasions to cater for, especially these days with more and more elaborate party themes emerging. Books are a great place to look for examples of food for children's parties and for inspiration for party themes.

In this blog I will be exploring how food is represented in children's books, particularly at parties, and how authors connect food and childhood.  I will also present recipes for making party food and share my experiences of my own birthday cakes. Overall, I hope to show how children's literature can make a big impact on food created for special occasions. 

So my first step was to go back to my family home and dig out my Mum's dusty recipe books and old magazine cuttings of recipes ...

A little taster of what's to come!