Brigadeiro turns up at Brazilian birthday parties rolled into balls and covered in sprinkles. It is condensed milk and cocoa cooked down slowly until it thickens into a chocolate milk caramel, and it is the thing children fight over. The Thunder Chocolate Cake takes that same brigadeiro and builds a four-layer cake around it, which is why it eats denser and fudgier than a chocolate cake usually does.
What brigadeiro actually is
Brigadeiro is not ganache and it is not frosting. It is condensed milk cooked with cocoa and butter until the sugars concentrate and the mixture pulls away from the pan in one glossy mass. Cooked less, it stays soft and spoonable. Cooked further, it firms up enough to roll in the hand. The flavour is milky and deep rather than sharp, and it carries chocolate without the bitterness a dark ganache brings.
We make it here in the same way, and you can buy it on its own as a single brigadeiro from the cabinet, which is the cheapest way to understand the flavour before you commit to a whole cake. It also turns up as the drizzle on the Brazilian Carrot Cake in the tea cakes and loaves range.
How the Thunder is built
The base is a moist, velvety chocolate cake with a deep cocoa profile. The brigadeiro goes through it, and that is what changes the texture: instead of a light crumb with a layer of cream, you get a soft cake carrying something dense and silky in every slice. Four layers, finished with chocolate elements rather than fondant. There is no added colouring and no bespoke decoration here, so the cake arrives looking the way it looks in the photograph.
If you want to place it against the rest of the range, it sits at the fudgy end. The Dulce Caramel Cake uses dulce de leche, which is the same slow-cooked milk idea without the cocoa, and finishes in dark chocolate ganache. The Black Forest Cake lightens chocolate with white chocolate whipped cream and cherries. The Prestige Coconut Cake runs dark chocolate against coconut milk caramel. All ten sit together in the specialty layer cake collection.
Sizes and servings
- 15cm, from $95, serves 12 to 15
- 20cm, serves 20 to 25
- 25cm, serves 30 to 35
Count heads before you choose, because these go further than people expect. A dense cake also cuts into smaller portions comfortably, so the upper end of each range is realistic rather than optimistic. If the guest list is short, mini cakes are one serving each and come individually or in trays of six and twelve.
Bring the person you are buying for
The most useful thing a gifter can do is stop guessing. Bring the recipient in ahead of the occasion, buy a Thunder slice and one other from the cake slices cabinet, and let them tell you which one they actually want. The tables move, so a group of four to eight can sit together, and the kitchen is open plan, so you can watch the cakes being finished while you decide. It costs you twenty dollars and an hour, and it removes the one risk in the whole exercise. For larger events, slices can be ordered in sets of fifteen through dessert catering boxes.
Ordering and collection
Allow two days. Cakes are made to order, and you choose your pickup date and time during checkout, where the date picker only offers dates the kitchen can meet. Collection is from our patisserie inside The Welder, 20 to 26 Welles Street in the central city. We do not deliver, and there is no courier option. Hours are 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 3pm Saturday.
Collecting the day before is usually easier than collecting on the day. The cake is handed over boxed, and it keeps in a fridge in our packaging overnight without changing. Carry the box from the base, keep the car cool, and take the cake out one to two hours before serving. The frequently asked questions page covers changes and refunds. For more on the flavour, read our piece on brigadeiro in Christchurch, our roundup of the best chocolate desserts, and the guide to choosing, storing and serving a birthday cake.
