Helen, this cake sounds fantastic and I'm thinking of making it for a dessert on the Saturday night of Queen's Birthday weekend. We'll be travelling to a friend's home in another town where we'll be meeting with a group for the weekend. My question is: if I make the cake on the Friday morning, will it still be fresh enough for dinner on the Saturday? I know the recipe says to refrigerate it for 4 hours or overnight, but from early Friday to late Saturday is quite a long time, so I'm just wondering. Should I leave it in the tin all that time until just before serving, or take it out earlier?
Also, vanilla is mentioned in the method section of the recipe, but doesn't appear in the list of ingredients - I'm guessing that it's a teaspoon of
vanilla?
Lastly, I have Lite Evaporated Milk in the pantry - will this be okay to use, or should I buy the full milk one? Let's face it, calories are not really an issue with this cake!
Sorry to bombard you with all this, but I'm hoping to give it a trial run later today, depending on your answer.
Thank you in advance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2014 04:08AM by mommamurf.

Sorry Mommamurf, this only just caught my attention.

My tips for the recipe are - I think it is best in a rectangular baking dish, it is easier to get the cake to absorb the liquid.

I would potentially make the cake Friday and then pour over the liquid on Saturday morning - can you do that?
Freshness isn't an issue as the cake absorbs the liquid and becomes very luscious.

I would ordinarily recommend using full fat evaporated milk but with the chocolate and condensed milk I wonder if it would matter. I think maybe you won't notice the difference.

Thanks, Helen. I went ahead and did the trial run the other day, and we loved it. I did it in a lined, round loose-bottomed tin and brought the lining paper up around the sides by about an inch, so most of the liquid stayed inside the cake and inside the tin, although a few drops escaped. I'll think about using a rectangular dish, but I'm wondering if it would come out of the dish as easily? It really is a beautiful cake and an absolute winner for our dinner next weekend. Do you think the liquid will absorb quite so well if the cake is cold? It would certainly make it easier to transport if it didn't have all that liquid inside it.
Also, I note that the recipe suggests accompanying it with cream and some poached fruit - we didn't bother with either of those when we tried it out the other night, but I will certainly use cream, and I'm wondering whether a small dipping dish of bottled cherries would be nice with it. What do you think?
By the way, I kept two fairly decent-sized pieces for my husband and myself to try out, and gave the rest away to some very appreciative neighbours - it's far too decadent for two people to eat the whole thing (although we were tempted!).