(Alcoholic) Chocolate Freezer Cake Recipe

Description

A simple to make unbaked cake that can hold a high proportion of alcohol.

Summary

Mix mashed biscuits, margarine, golden syrup, drinking chocolate & (optionally) spirit.
Takes approximately: 10 min work, negligible cooking, 60 min total.

Ingredients

Basic cake	Digestive biscuits	250 g
	Margarine	100 g
	Golden syrup	15 ml
	Drinking chocolate powder	40 ml
	Dark Eating Chocolate	100 g
Optional alcohol	Rum or other spirit	up to 100 ml
Optional alcohol	Rum, brandy or whiskey icing flavouring	a little

Equipment

Mixing bowl. A big mortar & pestle (mixing bowl & full tin can or strong wine bottle will do) to bash biscuits with; alternatively plastic bags & something to bash it with or a food processor. Knife (to mix & press into cake tin with). Scales & spoons (or just estimate). Microwave oven with microwaveable bowl (or a hob & saucepan). Square shallow baking tin about 20 cm sided. Greaseproof paper.

Detailed Instructions for Non-alcoholic Version

Mash the biscuits. Here are 3 suggestions for how to do this:
- A foodprocessor is probably the easiest way (other than cleaning afterwards) provided you have one & it is durable enough survive bashing dry biscuits.
- The quickest way I have found to do it without a foodprocessor is:
  1. Put the biscuits in a large mortar (a large plastic mixing bowl will do).
  2. Grind them with a large pestle (a full tin can will do; a wine bottle is an easier shape to hold for grinding but, if using one, take care not break it as it could cause a nasty injury).
  3. Continue until most of the pieces are small enough (a matter of personal preference: powder size bits give a smooth fudgey result; 5 mm lumps give a more interesting texture).
  4. Shake the bowl to bring the large the pieces to the surface (the 'muesli effect'). If any are too big, repeat the grinding on them.
- The method in the original (school) recipe used a plastic bag & rolling pin:
  1. Put them in a large plastic freezer bag or tough plastic carrier bag & tie the top leaving ample space for them to move.
  2. Optionally, put that in another bag for extra mess protection.
  3. Bash it with a rolling pin, tin can, mallet or other suitable object (a brick is not suitable because it is rough enough to tear the bag) turning or shaking the bag often to redistribute the contents.
  4. When it feels like most of the pieces are small enough, empty the bag into the mixing bowl.
  5. Shake the bowl to bring the large the pieces to the surface (the 'muesli effect'). If any look too big, return them to the crushing bag & repeat.
Put the margarine, golden syrup & drinking chocolate powder in a bowl & microwave until liquid.
Meanwhile line the baking tin with greaseproof paper.
Mix the liquid.
Pour the liquid into the bowl of broken biscuits & mix thoroughly.
Put the mixture into the baking tin & press flat.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave.
Top the mixture with melted chocolate.
Put in refrigerator to speed solidification.
Slice into 16 squares.

Alcoholic Version

The alcoholic version is simply the non-alcoholic version with spirit mixed in. Because the cake is not cooked, it does not evaporate & it can end up with up to two thirds of a unit of ethanol per slice. The cake will be a lot more soft (well, slimy actually) though. Some tips to keeping it solid:

Mix the spirit into the broken biscuits before adding the melted margarine mix and just add the flavouring to the margarine mix because it will not impede the setting of the margarine, which is what binds the cake together, as much.
Reduce the amount of margarine & syrup used because less will be absorbed by the biscuits because they will be saturated with spirits.
Use butter instead of margarine because it is harder.
Use spirit with much greater than 40% ethanol so that less water goes in the cake (I have not tested this one due to the unavailability of cheap (but fit for human consumption) spirit above 40% w/w locally).

Origin

This started as a non-alcoholic middle school cookery lesson recipe (also called 'Polish Cake'; 'Polish' as in the country not as in wax). It was simple to make so I, much later, made some for a lunch party and added some cheap rum. I was only going to be a little rum but I made an arithmetic slip when increasing the quantities from my initial experimental version to the production version which quadrupled the proportion of rum. Ever since then, I keep being asked to make it for parties so often that I am getting rather bored with making it!