This Mandarin Rosemary Chocolate Fudge Cake is the perfect show stopper to place on the table after an epic holiday feast.ย Because you always have room for dessert.
Chocolate Fudge Cake
Okay guys.ย This Mandarin Rosemary Chocolate Fudge Cake cake is everything.ย The rosemary infused cake is super moist and the frosting is deep and rich with chocolate and mandarin zest.ย It is also super simple to make too.ย I mean the mini gingerbread house is totally optional, but really you can keep it pretty simple by just frosting the middle and the top and leave it at that.
Because the ingredients list is so minimal, I highly recommend you use the best of the best.ย I actually wanted to make a chocolate fudge cake because I found some French butter at a super fancy grocery store.
So How Do You Make It?
You start by infusing some rosemary in some milk.
Then you melt the best butter and chocolate you can find and add it too the milk.
You pour all that goodness into a bowl of flour, cocoa powder and sugar.ย Look at that batter.ย It’s fuggy already.
Decorating the Cake
As I mentioned before you can keep it very simple by just frosting the middle and top layer and leave it as is.ย However if you wanted to take it up a notch you can do as I do and embellish the crap out if it.ย With edibles and herbs of course.
First thing is to cool your cakes at room temperature and then wrap them up in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer overnight.ย It is oh so important to let them cool at room temperature as your cakes are still technically baking.ย You want them to finish what they are doing and then freeze.ย This really helps in decorating.
Once they are very firm use a serrated knife to make the top of the cakes flat.ย Don’t worry don’t throw away those cake scraps.ย I have a recipe on how to use those and left over icing in an up coming post.
Put the bottom layer on a cake stand and frost with about a cup of frosting and top with some candied orange rind.ย Top with the second layer of cake and frost with the same amount of frosting.
Now it’s the fun part.ย Take some dehydrated mandarin slices and arrange them around the cake and use some rosemary sprigs to form some makeshift trees.ย You can add a gingerbread house if you feel like it.
Gah how insanely cute is this cake??
It’s made with one of my favorite flavor combinations (chocolate and orange), which fun fact was one of the flavors of our wedding cake.ย You can have a look at our wedding here if you wanted to be nosy.ย Hehe.
Enjoy this cake so much and make it for everyone you love.ย They will certainly feel all the feels when they see you bring it out.