Chocolate Tia Maria Fridge Cake

last of the chocolate coffee liqueur fridge (ice box) cake

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Oh, have you tried replacing some of the cream in your ganache for plain Greek yoghurt?

Even if yoghurt isn't in your top 500 foods, once added to ganache a little bit of magic occurs. Well, ok not "magic" (I'm trying to sell you on the idea because I like it so much), but rather the yoghurt has a two fold effect of lightening the texture of the ganache and adding an acid component that cleans the palate. 

I like a ratio of 50% cream to 50% Greek yoghurt. The yoghurt ganache can be made with white, milk and dark chocolate. Think white chocolate yoghurt ganache with strained passion fruit puree for truffles or dark chocolate yoghurt ganache sauce with profiteroles or for your berries and waffles. What follows is the basic ratio/method that you can use in your existing recipes, plus a retro fridge cake laced with Tia Maria that the my step son Daniel declared was so nice "I could eat this everyday". 

Chocolate Tia Maria Refrigerator Cake

Ingredients

Sponge fingers come with different amounts of biscuits depending on the brand... from 250g to 400g but the following recipe makes plenty of ganache, in fact you might have some over to top a cupcake or two. 

I x packet of savoiardi/sponge finger biscuits

125 ml (quarter of a cup) of very strong brewed black coffee  (you can make up instant if you don't have shots of expresso handy) 

1/4 cup caster sugar (superfine) 

3 tablespoons of coffee liqueur (add more coffee if you want to avoid the alcohol) 

1 tsp of pure vanilla extract/essence

150g  (5oz)  milk chocolate, roughly chopped

150g  (5oz) dark chocolate, roughly chopped

250 ml (one cup) thickened cream (whipping cream)

250 ml (one cup) plain thick Greek yoghurt

Place the sugar and coffee in a saucepan, bring to a rapid boil and boil one minute or until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Stir in Tia Maria and vanilla extract. Set aside. 

Melt the chocolate with half the cream in a heat proof bowl over pan a simmering water. Remove from heat and stir through the remaining cream and yoghurt. Refrigerate until the ganache is thick enough to spread. 

Divide up your sponge fingers, I made my cake by laying six sponge fingers side by side and allowed another 12 sponge fingers to create two layers on top. *This size will give you leftover ganache, if you are using a larger packet of biscuits you will use all the ganache. 

Spread some of the chocolate ganache onto your cake platter to secure the first row of sponge fingers. 

Start to build the cake by dipping biscuits in the coffee/tia maria solution, lay six across the bottom, top with ganache, dip another six biscuits lay those on top of the base layer, top with ganache and lay final layer of dipped biscuits on top. Use remaining ganache to cover the sides and top of cake. 

Chill for 4-6 hours. 

Optional: decorate with your choice of chocolate curls, grated chocolate, chocolate coated coffee beans or crushed choc/coffee candy bars. 

adapted from no bake Irish gateau Hamyln all colour cookbook: 200 chocolate recipes 

 Happy Baking :)

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Or perhaps you have been hankering to make a Chinese dragon