Chocolate-Mint Cake

Yet another summer cake, although it was quite a challenge to whip butter in my apartment that had a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius at night!

Ingredients:

9x11 inch Pyrex dish or deep baking sheet (30x40 cm)

Some grease

For the batter:

100 g peppermint chocolate (I used some without a soft center)

175 g (1.5 sticks) butter or margarine

150 g sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 package vanilla sugar

1 pinch salt

3 eggs

200 g all-purpose flour

15 g cocoa powder

1.5 leveled teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon milk

For the topping:

200 g (1/2 pint) whipping cream

30 g powdered sugar

200 g plain Greek yoghurt (Fage or Chobani brand)

For decoration:

Some fresh mint leaves

Peppermint chocolate (soft center filled) like After Eight or Thin Mints

Preparation:

1. Cut peppermint chocolate into small pieces. Put aside about 25 g. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F). Grease Pyrex form or baking sheet.

2. Whisk butter or margarine until soft. Add sugar, vanilla and salt and whisk until sugar stops being crunchy. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix for 1/2 minute per egg.

3. Mix flour, cocoa and baking powder and sift. In two portions add flour to batter alternating with the milk. Lastly, stir in chocolate pieces.

4. Pour batter into Pyrex dish and spread evenly in pan. Bake cake at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F) for about 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove cake from oven and let cool.

5. Gently stir remaining chocolate pieces into the Greek yoghurt. Whip cream with powdered sugar until stiff peaks are visible (you should be able to hold the bowl upside down without the cream sliding out). Gently fold the whipped cream into the yoghurt (do not stir!).

6. Spread cream on top of cake. Using a spoon make some wave lines into the cream layer and chill cake for at least 1 h before serving. Decorate cake with mint leaves and chocolate pieces.

Comments:

1. A little helper to whip cream stiff is starch (potato starch). In the US powdered sugar already contains starch, so I do not use Sahnesteif (Whip It), which essentially contains starch and a little sugar. If you have access to Sahnesteif you can use two packages to prepare the whipped cream, just add it to the liquid cream before starting to whip it.

2. The original recipe uses only whipping cream. I find the cake quite heavy, and like the sour yoghurt taste, so it used equal amount of yoghurt and cream.