Tag: cake

[recipe] Chocolate cake with chocolate coffee buttercream

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240 g all-purpose flour
395 g sugar
65 g unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp (8 g) baking powder
1.5 tsp (9 g) baking soda
1 tsp (2.5 g) kosher salt
1 tsp (2.5 g) espresso powder
225 ml milk
1/2 cup (99 g) vegetable oil
2 large (100 g) eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
225 ml boiling water

Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by spraying with baking spray or buttering and lightly flouring.

Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk through to combine or, using your paddle attachment, stir through flour mixture until combined well.

Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed and carefully add boiling water to the cake batter until well combined.

The cake batter will be very thin after adding the boiling water. This is correct and results in a delicious and moist chocolate cake.

Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center of the chocolate cake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.

Frost the cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

Frosting:
130g softened butter
200g sugar
50g cocoa powder
1 tsp espresso powder
50ml milk

Dissolve espresso powder in a little but of boiling water then mix with milk.

Whisk butter, sugar, cocoa powder and coffee/milk until smooth.

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[Recipe] Dutch apple cake

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From the Rachel Allen cookbook. I was bored today and felt like cooking.

Ingredients:

Two eggs
175g caster sugar
Half tsp vanilla essence
75g butter
75ml milk
125g plain flour
Half tsp ground cinnamon
2¼ tsp baking powder
Two small or one medium cooking apple
A separate 15g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 200ºC, Gas Mark 6. Grease, and line with parchment paper, an 8″x 8″ square tin.

Whisk the eggs with the 175g caster sugar until the mixture is thick and mousse-like and the whisk leaves a figure ‘8’. (about 5 minutes)

Melt the butter with the milk and pour onto the eggs, whisking all the time. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and fold carefully into the batter so that there are no lumps of flour. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

Peel and core the apples and slice into thin slices. Arrange them over the batter. They’re going to sink, that’s normal. Sprinkle with the remaining 15g of sugar. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180ºC, Gas Mark 4, for a further 20 to 25 minutes, or until well risen and golden brown.

Cool in the tin and serve warm. Delicious with cream, or, of course, custard.

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One of my more random impulse purchases

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I love the for-sale list on campus. The amount of weird and wonderful shit that people routinely buy and sell is simply fantabulous. Just today, this came up for sale:

Beautiful Hand Made 4 Tier Celebration Cake for Sale
The cake is here on campus.
Freshly baked, chocolate and baileys flavour.

Basically, it was for sale because the chef is going to make a wedding cake for a family member and this is the practice run.

So I bought a cake that would normally be sold for £180 for a fraction of the price :D

EDIT: Oh, and as a side-note, I’m told that the topmost tier would give 8 large portions. We might have cake for a while…

EDIT:

[14:33:24] Joe Foster: heheawesome
[14:33:40] Joe Foster: looks like its about to topple over, or is that the design?
[14:33:49] Richard Cote: by design, doofus
[14:34:23] Joe Foster: i have no idea about wonky cake design
[14:34:44] Joe Foster: i am a victoria sponge man, anything more is voodoo to me.
[14:36:18] Richard Cote: I should have Katy give you a course in the proper nuances of cake :)
[14:37:37] Joe Foster: nuance schmuance, its victoria sponge or gtfo.
[14:41:19] Richard Cote: what about lemon? chocolate? chocolate and orange?
[14:41:42] Richard Cote: there's a whole world of cake out there to be explored
[14:41:43] Richard Cote: philistine!

EDIT: Crap, it has marzipan in it. I was specifically told that it didn’t contain any nuts :(

EDIT: Well, ok. After some cake surgery, I was able to remove the marzipan and shave off the outside layers of the cake. It was a hell of a job and took all of our tupperware to store the results. Jaysus, that’s about 30 pounds of cake!!!

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Weekend in review

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Katy was signed off all of last week for doctor recommended R&R. I took the end of the week off – it was my birthday after all – so we made the most of it. We went to see The Dark Knight on Thursday and I can’t be help repeating all that’s been said about the Joker’s performance. It’s a master-class calibre performance and he’s sure to get the Oscar, albeit posthumously.  Katy baked two cakes for my birthday. One was a backup in case something went wrong with the main one. Hold on to your seats folks, she baked me a train cake!

I mean, how cool is that? She made 3 chocolate carriages, 3 lemon one and the rest are plain vanilla sponge. Have I mentioned that Katy rocks recently? Cause she does. Now the picture above isn’t of the actual cake itself – that’s just a promo picture from the tin. The actual cake is currently frozen because, since Pam had baked me a cake as well, we decided to freeze those we’d made to avoid cake overload!

We went to Leicester on Friday. I did a bit of shopping and ran some errands on Friday afternoon while Katy had her haircut. Rita was supposed to come by Katy’s house on Saturday to pick up her birthday present and be social, but that crashed and burned in a rather spectacular fashion. I’m of mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, I’m happy that it happened because it will now mean that Katy won’t be stressing out every time we go to Leicester to try and accommodate Rita. On the other, I’m angry about some of the things she said. The girl is clearly living in her own private reality at times. I’m not the only one who thinks this and Katy’s parents are firmly behind me on this one. But still, it bothered Katy and I don’t like that. Blergh. We saw Stu for the first time in a while and he seems in good spirits and was happy to see us, so that made up for a bit of the emo-ness of the weekend.

Sunday saw us in a church, of all places. Pam, Katy’s friend, had invited us to the christening of her son, Ethan. It was my first Anglican service and I can say that it’s pretty much like a catholic one, except with more singing and a lot more infrastructure. It amused me that I could translate large chunks of the service in my head. It’s amazing how much church stuff I remember from when my mom dragged us to Sunday services when I was younger.

We had a good weekend in Leics. We ate too much true british food: fish & chips on Friday, curry on Saturday and a lunch roast on Sunday :) Having said that though, we were glad to be back home, sleeping in our own bed. The futon in Katy’s room in Leics is very low and she’s starting to be at the point where she can’t easily get in or out of it :)

The cats seemed happy to see us whe we got in. I was a bit worried about leaving them alone for the weekend – especially since Reenie was just getting over a bit of trouble as we were leaving – but Lennart stopped by the house a few times over the weekend and they were acting very catlike in their disdain of his presence :) Tolstoy seemed to be working on a hairball the night we came back but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him this morning.

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[Recipe] Marmorkuchen

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I tried this recipe over xmas to try out my new silicone baking mold.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, well beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cocoa
3 tbsp. rum (optional)

Directions:

Measure sifted flour, add baking powder, and salt, and sift again. Cream butter and gradually add 1 1/2 cups of the sugar, creaming well after each addition. Cream until light and fluffy.

Add beaten eggs, about a third at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and milk alternately, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat after each addition just until smooth. (Do not overbeat.)

Blend together the remaining 1/2 cup sugar, the cocoa, and rum. Stir the cocoa mixture into half of the cake batter. Layer batters alternately in a 10-inch tube pan. Cut through with a spatula just to marble the batters. (Do not blend)

Bake in a moderate oven (350F/175C) about 60 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean).

Remove from mold and let cool. Dust with icing sugar before serving slices with a nice cup of coffee or tea.

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Chocolate Crepe Cake

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Crepe Recipe

1 2/3 cups flour ( 250g plain flour)
1 tbsp caster sugar
3 eggs, plus 3 egg yolks
600ml milk
40g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra melted butter to brush,

Chocolate & Espresso filling

250g good-quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
50g unsalted butter, chopped
150ml milk
100ml thickened cream
100ml strong black coffee (espresso)
1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar

Mix flour, sugar, eggs, yolks and milk in a blender or food processor until smooth, then pour into a jug and stand for 30 minutes. Just before cooking, stir 40g (2 tbsp) melted butter through the batter. Heat pan and brush with extra butter, add enough batter to coat base, swirl to cover, tip off any excess. Cook for 45 seconds, then flip and cook for 30 seconds more or until golden. Repeat with butter and remaining batter till you get abt 20 crepes, stacking with baking paper in between.

For the filling, melt the chocolate in a bain marie. Stir in butter, milk, cream, coffee and sugar, then whisk until mixture is smooth and sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, cover and set aside for 20-30 minutes until mixture cools and thickens. Lightly grease an 18cm springfrom pan. Place a crepe in pan and spread with a little filling. Continue layering, finishing with a crepe. There should be 1/3 cup filling left. Cover cake with foil and chilll for 1 hour. When set, remove springform pan and pour remaining chocolate filling and top with cream.

I tried making this last weekend when we were at Katy's parents'. Two things: you really do need a good crepe pan because otherwise it's a PITA to get the crepes to come out nicely. I also made the ganache a bit too runny, so cut down on the amount of liquid for next time.

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