Free From Cocoa Cake

Recipe Based on Not Quite Nigella: LINK

I recently made some BanBan Bread, and felt there was something missing. Not with the bake; the cake was a trusted one, and didn't fail to deliver. No, the disappointment came from another source. When I make banana cake, my Scottish colleague would often come up to me and say, after an appreciative and perfectly timed pause, 'that banana bread'. It was something I came to expect as part and parcel with me making this type of cake.

When my most favourite comment was not forthcoming, I went to seek it out, and demand its presence. It turns out that the comment's owner had recently changed his lifestyle and was cutting out lactose and gluten. Well! This put a spanner in the works. I live off droplets of perceived praise, and I couldn't let a reliable source run dry. I immediately started researching gluten free, lactose free recipes. I stumbled across a couple, however rather than being flourless, they tended to use gluten free flours. I am currently reluctant to invest in them, mainly because I am reluctant to go to a shop in the opposite direction from my home.

One glorious day, an email came into my inbox with a powerful headline. I was ordered to make this cake. a gluten free, dairy and lactose free, nut free, and most shockingly, chocolate free cake! The base of the cake was quinoa, Surprise!

Now I know very little about quinoa. I can identify it, I know its texture, but not much else. I managed to eventually locate it in the supermarket, prepared it the day before so it was nice and cold, and off I went. Into Egg Oblivion, where I did not realise I was one egg short. I decided to freestyle, and replace an egg with a mashed banana, as I was too far gone to turn back.

Now it could be the egg substitution, it could be the fact it had only cooled for 1 hour, but the poor bundt collapsed upon turning it out of its tin. After all that effort, I wasn't giving up, so I hastily transferred the cake pieces to cupcake cases, topped them with the coconut cream icing to make puddings.

Puddin's

Now even though the cake did not turn out as I expected, I loved the ease of it, and I genuinely liked the flavour and unusual texture. So much so, I will try it again when I can devote three evenings to its creation.

Coconut Chocolate Cake

 Recipe base from Restlesschipotle.com (LINK)

On my Bundt quest that has no particular end goal, I stumbled upon this recipe.
Whilst the description talked a big game, about the amazing pairing of coconut and chocolate, and rum, I found it difficult to believe that a recipe that only had coconut milk - which has a very delicate flavour - as its connection to coconut was going to be that flavoursome.

Now don't get me wrong, the cake batter was nice, and after a previous incident with too much density, I bought a new hand blender, and was really taking precautions not to overbeat the batter.

Batter

I unintentionally used under half of the chocolate from the recipe, but I didn't have enough dark chocolate anyway. I don't feel it hurt the recipe.

As the cake has an option of adding a cup of macadamia nuts, I would say that I would probably add a cup of desiccated coconut. This somewhat defeats the purpose of avoiding the texture, however I can't in all good conscious say that this is a coconut cake. Maybe adding tablespoon of coconut extract, or replacing the quarter cup of rum for Malibu could be an option.

with chocolate medley

My batter came out very velvety and rose magnificently from the pan as it was baking. Far too much batter for my 12 cup bundt. I don't blame the recipe, I should have recognised that it was too full, and made cupcakes with the remainder.

Bundt!

After turning the cake out, I decided in a moment of madness/genius to cut the bottom off the cake to even it up. I then discovered what is becoming a recurring nightmare for me: Density. Is that part still not baked properly?! I whipped it back into the oven with a foil hat for another 15-20 minutes, contradictorily still on its cooling rack. After this point I admitted defeat, and took it out to cool entirely.

Finished Product

As the Swedes say, kämpa kämpa. I finished the cake off by pouring half of the coconut rum sauce over it, and reserving the other half to heat up and pour over it the next day.

The cake was still demolished within 10 minutes, and whilst I was lurking in the sidelines, eagle-eyeing the cake and its inner appearance, I discovered to my wary yet somewhat happy bewilderment that the cake appeared to have repaired itself overnight! No dense, doughy patches or anything! Not sure how that happened, but I'm pleased... for now.

Chocolate and Sea Salt Caramel Bundt Cake

Recipe based on Tesco.com (LINK)

So I have been eyeing this recipe up from across the virtual room, and decided to give it a go seeing as I'm in a bundt and ring cake phase.

The instructions were very clear, however I would amend the instructions to adding the dry mix to the egg mixture, rather than the other way around that was directed. I found doing it that way made it difficult to stir.

I managed to mess up royally - twice - after adding too much baking powder to the first dry mix (2 tablespoons rather than teaspoons), I decided to bag that mix for another time, and make another dry mix. So... second time lucky? No chance. Instead of using self raising flour, I used plain flour. So ironically, I ended up adding another 5 teaspoons to the dry mix in a bid to convert the plain flour into self raising.

batter. tin was buttered, floured, and cocoa'd

This all seemed like a crafty plan, however the self satisfied smile was soon on the other side of my face after the cake sank like the Titanic after I checked it at my usual 40 minute mark.

turned out cake after 20 mins cooling in tin.

I was feeling pretty low at this point, as my cakes have lost their quality, and frustratingly I don't quite know why. I bought a new hand mixer as the variable speed switch on my old one has stopped working and therefore it only operates on one speed.

I digress. I decided to plough on, because as much as I dislike presenting food (or anything) not quite to my standard, I dislike waste more (obviously I am a tupperware fan), so onwards!

Caramel

The caramel is the crowning glory of this cake, and was the best caramel recipe I have ever used, but beware: it is potent! It tastes so rich that it glides down your throat in a way that would make you believe it had alcohol in it. I used about 25g of lys sirup, and 25g of the real deal: Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup.

Melting chocolate, and making caramel

I managed to decorate the cake as directed, however omitted the almonds in case of nut and seed allergies. As you can see from the final picture, the cake was very covered in chocolate shavings... for that reason I would halve the chocolate used for it.

Final Product

Available at Samara's Baked Goods

Coffee Cake

Base recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery book

The cake is massive! It actually require 450g apiece of sugar, butter, and flour, plus a whopping eight eggs! Once again, I misjudged my little bundt tin, and the cake was far too large. I felt it would be, and prepared a loaf tin for the excess, however still managed to overfill the bundt, and then felt it more appropriate to make 4 cupcakes with the remaining batter.

Note to self: the bundt tin should only be 2/3 full!

I used chocolate frosting (recipe from the same book), however this made far too much icing. Only half is needed. The butter wouldn't incorporate properly with the sugar, so in a desperate bid to save it, I zapped it in the microwave for 30 seconds. This made it more pliable, however I still was not happy with its consistency so I added around 15g of goats' cheese, which didn't affect the taste, but did get it closer to the desired creaminess.

The topping was meant to be finished with chocolate shavings and coffee beans - like I would bother! No; instead I sprinkled liberally with multi-coloured chocolate drops (white, milk, and dark)...before the cake had cooled properly. So they melted. I have renamed the cake 'Erupting Chocolate Coffee Cake', and put it down to artistic licence.

The centre of the cake did not bake properly, so I returned it to the oven sans tin (after its recommended 40-minute bake) for around 20 mins @ 150 deg C with foil around the outer edge and top. This helped it somewhat, but not entirely. I am hoping the icing can disguise any mishaps, however I am not convinced by my own hope!

The cupcakes are delicious, though, so the flavour is right, I just need to get the recommended 25cm ring tin. Ironically I saw it in the shop today, and decided not to buy it as I intended to bake bread tonight rather than cake.

Update: the centre was still a bit squidgy looking, and I put it down to using the bundt tin, so the entire quantity of the cake did not have an opportunity to bake properly. Edible, but I wasn't happy.

EBI: stronger coffee flavour (use 3 tablespoons of coffee for the coffee essence?)

Rating: 6/10 

Dalek on a night out?!

7/12/15

I'm reading this while I am updating my blog, and I am aware that I have written about this at a later point, however I am unsure whether I also mentioned that this cake is intended to be baked in a ring pan rather than a Bundt one! Well that's the case, and explains some of the issues I had with my initial attempt.

Triple Chocolate Merlot Bundt Cake

Recipe from Restless Chipotle (LINK)

Beautiful, extremely indulgent, chocolate cake

Requires around 600g of chocolate chips, and half a bottle of merlot for the cake and ganache.

I used a mix of dark and milk chocolate chips, pretty much 1:1.

The bundt tin I used was too small, so the cake rose above the edge, fortunately it didn't spill over. I felt this affected the baking time (1hr 10 minutes). I will get a larger tin for the next time I try this cake (which I will be doing)!*

My first ever Bundt

Whilst I appreciate that browned butter adds to the richness and depth of flavour, I think I will choose when to go through this process, depending on the intended consumers. My colleagues will probably not discern the difference between the flavours beyond 'chocolate', so if it is for them, I doubt I will go beyond just melting the butter.

The Cut

*I made my second attempt at this cake in March 2015, and following my notes, reduced the amount of batter in the tin. I may have been a bit too heavy handed with my reduction, as the cake that came out was pretty pitiful. I made cupcakes with the 'left over' batter, and they were pretty nice. I need to work out that happy fill point of the batter...

2nd attempt - March 2015

Pumpkin Butter Cake

Recipe base from Baked Bree (LINK)

Substituted pecan nuts for pumpkin seeds to make the cake nut-free

Converted all cup measurements (with the exception of the pumpkin butter) to grams

2 cups of flour - 250g (used plain flour)
1/2 cup of butter - 113g (unsalted)
1 cup of sugar/1 cup of brown sugar (200g each)

I couldn't be bothered to grind my nutmeg so used 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg from the jar.

I forgot to buy baking soda, so used 4 additional teaspoons of baking powder, and omitted the 1/2 teaspoon of salt. 

I used my own homemade 'Zumpkin' butter following the recipe from Oh She Glows (LINK).
I accidentally added 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin butter rather than 1 1/3, however it doesn't appear to have hurt the cake; I will update this once I have cut it tomorrow.

The batter seemed quite lumpy - mainly because I was impatient and didn't wait for my butter to become soft enough, so I couldn't cream my butter and sugar together properly. To be honest, I even if I had waited, I couldn't see how it would cream together due to the high sugar:butter ratio; I imagine it would have been more of a breadcrumb textured mixture.
The batter also seemed a lot more fluid than the picture on Bree's site, however this is probably down to the overage of pumpkin butter, plus the butter itself was a little bit fluid - I was too scared to boil it down further for fear of burning it!

I baked the cake for 50 minutes at 170°C, and it was a lovely burnished colour, however the cake tester was looking a little sweaty, so I covered the cake with foil, and returned to the oven for another 10 minutes. The cake looked done after this point, however just to rest my mind, I returned it to the oven with its foil hat with the heat off for another 10 minutes.

Total baking time: 1 hr 10 minutes.

I'm not sure why my icing wasn't as thick and white as Bree's... I'm not someone who really focuses on decoration, but one day, I will be bothered enough to find out!










As you can see the cake was a little bit moist on the inside. My oven is not fan-assisted, and most of the heat is around the edges due to the element within it, so this does not surprise me.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to alleviate this issue, please comment!