(Alcoholic) Chocolate Freezer Cake Recipe

Description

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

Also Known as

It is also known as 'Chocolate Refrigerator Cake', 'Chocolate Fridge Cake', 'Polish Cake' ('Polish' as in the country not as in wax) or 'Tiffin'.

The recipe (minus the alcohol) came to me twice at junior schools, once called 'Chocolate Freezer Cake' & once called 'Polish Cake'. The former is a misnomer because it only uses refrigerator (fridge), not freezer, temperatures to set the cake & the latter is totally ambiguous; as is 'Tiffin', which just means a light meal.

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 (75 g if using alcohol)
	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	Optional 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. Blunt rigid knife, spatular or wooden spoon (to mix the cake with). Blunt knife (to press into cake tin with; ideally a flat flexible pallet knife but can use an ordinary knife, a spatula or even a dessert spoon). A sharp knife (for cutting the cake; ideally a long one like a carving knife). Scales & spoons (or just estimate). Microwave oven with microwaveable bowl (or a hob & saucepan). Square shallow baking tin about 20 cm sided. Baking paper, greaseproof paper or reusable equivalent. Refrigerator (or a cold day outdoors).

It requires only minimal tools. The minimum set from the above is just bowl, plastic bag, knife/spatula, baking tin and a heat source to melt the ingredients!

Detailed Instructions for Non-alcoholic Version

Mash the 250 g of biscuits. Here are 3 suggestions for how to do this:
- The quickest way I have found to do it 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 or the end of a single-piece rolling pin could 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.
- A blender or foodprocessor looks the easiest way but the work of cleaning it afterwards is has to be included, bashing dry biscuits might damage a weak food processor and it tends to turn the biscuits to a fine powder, rather than mixed sizes of granules, which causes the resulting cake to be homogeneous and of a bland slimy texture.
Put the 100 g of margarine, 15 ml of golden syrup & 40 ml of 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 100 g of chocolate in a bowl in the microwave (if using the same bowl as before, wash it first to prevent left-over bits of biscuit making the chocolate lumpy).
Top the mixture with melted chocolate. Spread the chocolate out to evenly cover the cake top.
Leave to firm (half an hour to two hours depending on ambiet temperature).
Slice into 16 squares (3 equally spaced cuts parallel to each axis of the tin) or 12 fingers (1 central cut parallel to one edge of the tin and 5 equally spaced cuts parallel to the other edge of the tin). To minimise the fracturing of the chocolate coating, use a long sharp knife such as a carving knife or a 'French' chef's knife, and do this cutting before the chocolate fully sets. To avoid damaging the baking tin or baking tin, move the cake from the tin to a chopping board before cutting; an easy method to move the uncut cake is to lift it by the protruding edges of the greaseproof paper.
Put in refrigerator to speed solidification.
Leave to firm (an hour or two).

Alcoholic Version

The alcoholic version is simply the non-alcoholic version with up to 100 ml of drinking spirit mixed in. Because the cake is not cooked, it does not evaporate & it can end up with up to one third 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 (if using) 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 used because less will be absorbed by the biscuits because they will be saturated with spirits. About 75 g rather than 100 g of margarine.
Use butter instead of margarine because it is harder. Conversely, don't use soft "spread" as it is softer.
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 in UK) spirit above 40% w/w).

White Chocolate Version

It can be made with a white chocolate topping. The base is mostly hidden but could be made to match by missing out the drinking chocolate powder & using gin or white rum for the spirit. As that is less flavoursome, some appropriate additional flavour could be added such as grated lemon rind or lime juice.

Origin

This started as a non-alcoholic middle-school cookery lesson recipe. It was done in two different years, being called 'Chocolate Refrigerator Cake' the first time but 'Polish Cake' the second time. It was simple to make so I, many years later, made some for a lunch party and added some cheap rum. It 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. The overly alcoholic version was so popular that I subsequently experimented to find the maximum amount of rum I could put in the cake. Ever since then, I keep being asked to make it for parties so often that I got rather bored with making it! Hence I tried some variations, with the white one being be the best but still not as good as the original. At least it is very quick & easy to do.