Champagne - Chocolate Cake with Fructose

On the 31st of March 2011, my boss retired so we had a small party at a tavern called “Kyra Georgena” in Larnaca. Mr. Kyriacos was the best manager I ever had. We all love him very much because he is an honest, fair man, perfect in everything he did. We all learned a lot from him and we all wish him all the best for the years to come.

This is what was left from the food feast...!!!

So, as you can imagine I wanted to make something very special for him. I thought that since that party would be a celebration event, champagne would be a good idea, but, I had no idea how to make such a cake. I searched through the internet and I came up with a few ideas but the great help came from a blog called “Sugar Sweet Cakes and Treats” by Angela Tran. Angela has step-by-step instructions on how to make a gum paste bottle.

Below you will be able to find the cake recipe that I created especially for Mr. Kyriacos. The instructions on how to make the gum paste bottle can be found in Angela’s blog. I assure you that there you can find all the details. Thank you, Angela…!

The only thing I would like to tell you, from my experience, is to give the shaped gum paste bottle at least one week before you remove it from the mold and to place it on the cake the day you will serve it, otherwise your bottle might break.

Good luck with your Champagne or wine Bottle cake…

Champagne - Chocolate Cake with Fructose

Ingredients for the Chocolate Sponge Cake

200gr fructose sugar
8 large eggs
260gr all-purpose flour
40gr unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp unsweetened vanilla extract 

Sponge Preparation Method
1) Preheat the oven to 170ºC (338ºF).
2) Grease a rectangular pan (30cm x 20cm x 5cm).
3) Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder.
4) With an electric mixer beat together the eggs and fructose sugar for 8’ minutes, until light and fluffy; then add vanilla extract and the sifted flour (one tablespoon at a time). Do not over-mix.
5) Bake for forty minutes. Allow 5’ minutes before you remove the cake from the pan. Set the cake aside and allow it to cool completely before you decorate it.

Filling Ingredients
1 jar of diabetic strawberry jam (250gr)
(½ glass of hot water to dissolve the jam if needed)
1lt of double fresh cream
70gr unsweetened cocoa powder
50gr fructose sugar (or more, it depends on how sweet you want your filling to be)

Filling Preparation Method
1) Sift fructose sugar and cocoa powder.
2) With an electric mixer beat fresh cream, fructose sugar, and cocoa powder until the mixture becomes a cream. Do not over mix because if you do, you will have cocoa butter and not cream.

Cake Decoration
1) Divide the sponge into three layers.
2) Spread strawberry jam on each cake layer and then on top of the jam, spread 1cm of cocoa cream.
3) Repeat on all layers.
4) Cover the cake with the rest of the cream.
5) You can decorate your cake in any way you like.

In my photos, around the bottle, you can see white chocolate that was cut with a potato peeler. You can omit that if you want. I think that it created a more realistic view of a bottle in a basket.

As a second option, you can use Ivy’s sponge recipe, from kopiaste.org, that she used in “Chocolate Cupcakes & Strawberry Mousse Cake”, which I think is a delicious version of a cake.