Little monkeys will hog the chocolate mixing bowl!

Clare Latimer is baking a cake to raise funds for Burgh House and a Cornish monkey sanctuary. Why not get involved?
Published: 28 January 2010

What have John Williams, Burgh House and monkeys got in common? Well, John Williams’s father, Len Williams, started a monkey sanctuary in Looe, Cornwall in 1964 to rescue pet monkeys from the cruel conditions they were often being kept in.
Now they are swinging around in large enclosures with smiles on their faces.
John Williams and John Etheridge are very generously putting on a concert in the St John’s Church in Church Row in Hampstead in aid of Burgh House in New End and the Cornish Monkey Sanctuary on January 31 at 7.30pm and tickets can be bought from my shop, or Burgh House.
Clare’s Kitchen is going to make a large guitar-style cake, and will ask people to guess how many eggs are in the mixture. The winner will get a £50 voucher to spend in our shop.
The cake will preview in the shop on January 29th, so come along and join in the competition.
Theme cakes are great for childrens’ and adults’ parties, anniversaries and also,  as in this case, for raising money for worthwhile causes.
We  have realised that more and more people ask us to make these cakes. We so enjoy doing them, and now, here is your chance to have some fun.

Mrs Tigglewinkle cake
If you buy a themed cake from a cake shop or supermarket it may look good, but so often, the cake can be dry and taste of sawdust.
That may be a bit harsh, but it is certainly pointing in that direction. This is a great sticky fun cake and especially good for children. It’s also a good one for them to help decorate.

Ingredients
250g dark block chocolate
6 tbsp milk
300g butter, softened
300g caster sugar
6 eggs
400g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 teasp baking powder
½ teasp bicarbonate soda
For the Icing
150g butter, softened
2 tbsp cream
350g icing sugar
2 generous tbsp cocoa powder
2 packets milk chocolate buttons, broken in halves
1 packet white chocolate buttons
1 strawberry tip, or one blueberry
 
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C 350F Gas 4. Take two pudding basins (about 1 pint size each) and line the bottom with greaseproof paper.  Butter and flour the sides of the basins.
Put the chocolate and milk into a bowl and place over a pan of simmering water and stir until the chocolate has melted or put the bowl into the microwave and turn on to high for ten seconds, then stir and continue until melted and smooth. 
Beat the butter, caster sugar and eggs together until fluffy and smooth.  Fold in the melted chocolate.
Sift in the flour and cocoa powder along  with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and then fold in carefully.
Divide the mixture between the two prepared basins and bake in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes or until the mixture is cooked through.
Test with a skewer. After about 10 minutes, turn out the cakes onto a wire rack to cool.
For the icing, beat the butter and cream together until soft and smooth, and then sift in the icing sugar and cocoa powder and beat again until the mixture is light and fluffy.
To make the “hedgehog” cut a little off the side of one of the cakes and lay it flat on its side.
With the other cake slim it down on all sides so that it will be the nose of the cake and again cut off a piece at the side so that it will sit without rolling. 
Put onto a large plate and sandwich the two ends together with some of the icing.
Now cover the whole cake, using a palette knife, with the icing giving the hedgehog a good pointed face.
Stick in all the broken milk chocolate buttons into the cake like prickles and cover the whole cake except for the pointed face. 
To make the face, mark lines with a fork ending down at the nose tip.
Then, stick on two white chocolate buttons for the eyes, and cut  a strawberry or blueberry into a tip for the hedgehog’s nose.