I've created this one for reader Peggy Lin, who wrote asking for more low-fat, low-sugar recipes. This chocolate cake still has a rich, deep flavour, a delicate, moist texture, but very little fat or refined sugar, and it's quick to make. If you cut it into 10 slices, it works out about 220 calories a serving, with only half the fat and a quarter of the carbs of a typical un-iced cake. Up the calories a little by serving with a spoonful of low-fat crème fraîche and chocolate shavings.
One 415g tin pear halves in juice
75g cocoa powder
125g caster sugar
3 tsp vanilla extract
50ml walnut oil
1 large egg
225g plain flour
2½ tsp baking powder
Drain the pears, reserving the juice. Measure the cocoa, sugar and 125ml of pear juice into a saucepan, madly whisk it all together and bring to the first 'plop' of a boil. Spoon this mixture, along with the pear halves, into a mixing bowl and leave to cool for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile line the bottom and sides of a 20cm round cake tin with non-stick baking paper and preheat the oven to 170C (150C fan-assisted)/ 325F/gas mark 3. Spoon the chocolate mixture, vanilla and oil into a blender, and purée until smooth. Pour this back into the bowl, then beat in the egg. Stir together the flour and baking powder, sift into the bowl and beat until smooth.
Scrape the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
If the grocery store isn't your favorite place, it should be. We're sleuthing for the best back-of-the-box recipes and each week we'll share our latest find.
Today: The perfect chocolate cake recipe has been sitting in your pantry all along, patiently waiting for you to discover it.
Today feels like the right time to confess that I’ve never been able to bake a good chocolate cake.
I’m a pretty persistent person -- some would say bordering on a perfectionist -- and I’m a very confident baker. Despite all that, chocolate cake has stymied me for years. Mine are either too moist, taste only vaguely of cocoa, or fall apart when I try to frost them.
I want a serious chocolate cake. I want a sturdy crumb, like a 1-2-3-4 cake, but with an intense wallop of chocolate. I want you to be able to close your eyes and think, "Dark and rich." I want it to be tender yet still firm enough to slice and frost. I want it to be just moderately sweet so that it can pair well with Swiss meringue or caramel glaze or coffee buttercream. Oh, and I want to be able to make it in one bowl without needing any fancy, expensive chocolate.
I had gone on a lot of chocolate cake recipe first dates, so to speak, and had yet to enter a serious, move-in-with-me relationship with one -- until I met the perfect chocolate cake from the back of the Hershey’s cocoa box. I think it’s the one! And it was right in front of me all these years.
This dead-simple recipe yields a fantastically rich chocolate cake. It highlights the subtle alchemy of baking, taking a handful of very basic ingredients and turning them into something worthy of celebration. You don’t need any chocolate other than cocoa. There’s no buttermilk, no hot coffee, and no sour cream. Can I get a hallelujah? I've dialed down the liquid slightly from the original recipe to make the cake a little more sturdy, which helps when constructing (and eating) the layers.
More: These Genius brownies also rely only on cocoa powder for their chocolate flavor.
You don’t need the frosting -- the cake is very good plain. But when offered frosting, I usually say yes. Just to be polite. If you’re looking to dress it up differently, I’d suggest a topping of crème fraîche, boiled icing with cacao nibs, or dulce de leche frosting.
Perfect Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Hershey's
Makes one 8-inch double layer cake
For the cake:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup boiling water
For the frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2/3 cup cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
How do you get it creamy yet fluffy, have you made the original River Café
chocolate nemesis recipe, and which other gluten-free desserts are worth a
go?
This week has been a learning curve for me. I’d naively assumed that a
flourless chocolate cake was the kind of thing you might make when a coeliac
friend was coming for tea, possibly involving some sort of ground nuts or
cornflour.
But after looking at a few recipes, it dawned on me that I was barking up
completely the wrong tree. Though such cakes certainly exist, the classic
flourless variety doesn’t just eschew wheat, but any sort of starchy meal,
giving it a rich flavour and a dense, fudgy or creamy texture that puts it
firmly in the dessert, rather than the teatime, category. (Though, of course,
there’s nothing to stop you inviting that coeliac friend for dinner.)
Flourless chocolate cakes don’t tend to vary much in the ingredient
department: there is chocolate, obviously, plus eggs, sugar and some sort of
fat, usually butter but occasionally cream. The difference, as I discovered,
comes in how they are combined and baked.
The chocolate
Justin
Gellatly’s flourless chocolate cake.
Most recipes use just melted chocolate, but ex-St John pastry chef Justin
Gellatly’s excellently named Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding sifts in some cocoa
powder as well. Having used a combination of the two with great success in my
brownie and my teatime chocolate cake recipes, I know that cocoa comes in useful
when you want a concentrated chocolate flavour without making the cake itself
too sickly, and so it proves here. Though undeniably rich, Gellatly’s cake
manages to be intensely flavoured but less cloying than the infamous River Café
chocolate nemesis (the easy version, obviously; I’m not in the market for the
“kind of cowpat” reported by those unfortunates who trialled the original
recipe).
Gellatly and the River Café both use a relatively small amount of chocolate
and cocoa in proportion to the other ingredients, which proves wise: I find both
David Lebovitz’s Racines cake, from his book Ready for Dessert, and San
Francisco’s Zuni Café’s signature gateau victoire a little too bitter for my
taste, though those with more sophisticated palates may disagree. I do like
Lebovitz’s cocoa nibs, though – these crunchy shards of roasted cocoa bean add
texture and a hit of bitterness to each mouthful. If you can’t find them,
however, they’re not essential.
The sugar
David
Lebovitz’s flourless chocolate cake.
Everyone except Lebovitz uses caster sugar – he goes for granulated, but it
doesn’t seem to make much difference as far as I can tell. The River Café adds
most of the sugar in the form of a syrup, for reasons I don’t entirely
understand, but which someone better at kitchen chemistry than me might be able
to explain – syrups are often used to keep cakes soft and moist, but without
flour, this seems less likely. None of the recipes I try have quite the right
amount of sugar for my liking. Annie Bell’s French
and flourless, from her Baking Bible, is closest, while Lebovitz and Zuni
are too bitter, and the River Café and Gellatly a smidgen too sweet. As well as
striking a balance with quantity, I’m going to sub in a proportion of soft brown
sugar too, for a hint of caramel flavour. I’m surprised that Lebovitz and
Gellatly are the only bakers to make mention of a balancing pinch of salt, which
is helpful for rounding out the flavour of most sweet dishes, but absolutely
essential in a rich dish like this.
The eggs and fats
River
Cafe’s flourless chocolate cake.
Eggs are usually separated and whisked up independently to give the cake a
moussey consistency, which saves it from overwhelming heaviness. The River Café
and Zuni use whole eggs instead, the latter with two extra yolks as well, which
explains why their cakes have the smoothest, densest texture. Gellatly’s cake
contains a far higher proportion of eggs than any other recipe – 11 as opposed
to only four in the Zuni version – which I suspect is why it is incredibly rich
yet surprisingly light. Butter is the fat of choice here; only Zuni chooses
whipped cream instead, diluting the chocolate flavour.
Extras
Annie
Bell’s flourless chocolate cake.
Lebovitz flavours his cake with vanilla essence and espresso, while Zuni uses
just the coffee. Though I can’t pick up much in the way of vanilla, I’m
surprised by how much difference even a little coffee makes – though I’d be
hard-pressed to identify it as a flavour, the bitterness works brilliantly with
that of the chocolate, giving the whole thing greater depth.
Cooking
Zuni’s
flourless chocolate cake.
The River Café and Zuni both bake their versions in a water bath to moderate
the temperature for a creamier result, but as this is still a cake rather than a
mousse, I prefer it to have a little bit of fluffiness to it. Gellatly manages
to achieve both textures in the same dish by baking two-thirds of his mixture
for 30 minutes, cooling it for 20, adding the remainder and putting it back in
the oven for another 20 minutes, so the bottom is drier and lighter and the top
creamy and dense. It’s a really nice idea, but a bit of a faff. Instead, I’m
plumping for something in between the two – a rich, dense chocolate cake with
just enough fluff to make it worthy of the name. (Serves 8-10) 260g dark chocolate, broken into pieces 260g butter 1 tbsp strong coffee 8 eggs, separated 100g soft light brown sugar 160g golden caster sugar 85g cocoa powder ½ tsp salt 2 tbsp cocoa nibs (optional)
Grease a 23cm cake tin and line with greaseproof paper. Melt the chocolate
and butter together in a heatproof bowl set over, but not touching, a pan of
simmering water. Stir until smooth, then stir in the coffee and set aside to
cool slightly. Heat the oven to 160C/320F/gas mark three.
Put the egg yolks and sugars in a food processor and whisk until doubled in
volume. Turn the machine off and sift the cocoa powder on top of the egg mixture
(don’t just dump it in or you’ll get lumps). Add the salt, then mix on a low
speed until the cocoa is well combined.
Put the egg whites in another large bowl and whisk to the soft-peak
stage.
Gently fold the melted chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Fold a
third of the egg white into the mixture to loosen it before very carefully
folding the rest in, until the mixture is no longer streaky but an even, rich
brown. Sprinkle the cocoa nibs on top, if using.
Spoon into the tin and bake for 40-50 minutes until just set on top, then
allow to cool in the tin on a wire rack. Serve with something tart, such as
creme fraiche.
Allow me to introduce you to my favorite recipe for the flourless chocolate cake. It is the real thing. No gluten. No extra spices or flavorings. No added sugar. No extra ganache needed on top. Just a fabulously rich, decadent chocolate cake that will leave you and your friends swooning.And the best part is….there are only THREE ingredients.
And after watching it disappear with a few groups of friends this weekend, I think it’s everyone’s kind of cake!
Method:
Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line the bottom of an 8-inch springform pan with parchment paper or waxed paper and grease the sides of the pan. (Be sure to grease the sides really well!) Wrap the outside of the pan with 2 sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil and set it in a large roasting pan. Bring a kettle or pot of water to boil.
In a stand mixer using the whisk attachment, beat the eggs at high speed until the volume doubles (about 5 minutes).
Meanwhile, melt the chocolate and butter together. You can either do this on the stove (by placing the chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl set over a pan of almost-simmering water until smooth and very warm – about 115 degrees on an instant-read thermometer – stirring occasionally.
Or you can do this in the microwave (by heating the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl at 50% power for 2 minutes, then stirring, the adding the butter, and continuing to heat at 50% power and stir in 1-minute intervals until the mixture is well-melted and smooth). Then fold about a third of the beaten eggs into the chocolate mixture using a large rubber spatula until only a few streaks of egg are visible. Fold in half of the remaining egg foam, and then the last half of the foam, until the mixture is totally homogenous.
Scrape the batter into the prepared springform pan and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula. Place the roasting pan on the oven rack and pour in enough boiling water to come about halfway up the sides of the springform pan. Bake until the cake has risen slightly, the edges are just beginning to set, a thin-glazed crust (like a rownie) has formed on the surgace, and an instant-read thermometer inserted halfway into the center reads 140° F, 22-25 minutes.
Remove the springform pan from the water bath and set on a wire rack; cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate overnight to mellow and firm. (The cake can be refrigerated for up to 4 days.)
About 3o minutes prior to serving, carefully remove the sides of the springform pan, invert the cake onto a sheet of waxed paper, peel off the parchment paper, and reinvert the cake onto a serving platter. If desired, lightly dust the cake with powdered sugar and top with berries. To slice, use a sharp, thin-bladed knife, dipping the knife into a pitcher of hot water and wiping the blade before each cut.
'Boo-ti-ful' blend of chocolate and fruit BY MARGARET MORGAN
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
For a complete freaky Fright Night Feast, check out the October issue of Food & Wine magazine for a menu of Dark and Stormy Death Punch, Spicy Cheddar Witch Fingers, Worms in Dirt, Swamp Chili, Ghostly Lemon Pops and Chocolate Mice and Minced Spiced Pumpkins.
A super spookily delicious recipe good enough to raise the dead and an alternative to spiced pumpkins is a Halloween dessert guaranteed to raise hairs and eyebrows - Driscoll’s Graveyard Cake. Healthy, too – as it is filled with fresh strawberries, raspberries and blueberries combined to make a boo-ti-ful and delectable chocolate berry cake perfect for any Halloween celebration. Puréed blueberries are added to the chocolate cake batter and a sweet strawberry-raspberry jam fills the middle.Impress everyone with this clever and tasty treat.
This carrot cake is an exceedingly good cake made all the more pleasing by the twist of lime mascarpone icing. It’s delicious, it works and it’s better than any other carrot cake I’ve tried. I would normally bake this in a square or round cake tin, but for the picture I used a lovely old loaf tin and it came out looking gorgeous.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Grease and line a 22cm-square cake tin or a round equivalent with greaseproof paper. Beat the butter and sugar together by hand or in a food processor until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one by one, and add the orange zest and juice. Stir in the sifted flour and baking powder, and add the ground almonds, walnuts, spices and grated carrot and mix together well.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff, then gently fold them into the cake mix. Scoop the mixture into the prepared cake tin and cook in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes until golden and risen. You can check to see if the cake is cooked by poking a cocktail stick into it. Remove it after 5 seconds and if it comes out clean the cake is cooked; if slightly sticky, it needs a bit longer, so put it back in the oven. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out on to a rack and rest for at least an hour.
Mix all the icing ingredients together and spread generously over the top of the cake. Finish off with a sprinkling of chopped walnuts.
Staten island Advance/Jan Somma-HammelMother Mousse in Travis and Grant City offer Halloween-themed cookies and cupcakes this time of year. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — For the last six months, I have been on a very strict diet consisting of lean protein, vegetables and tons of fruits.
Unfortunately, being on this diet eliminates fun, naughty foods like potato chips, french fries and cake.
Thanks to my limited self-control, I have not been able to keep such foods in the house and, as a consequence, my children have not been able to indulge in the treats that used to be a part of our after-dinner tradition ... until now.
Halloween is the one time of year when diets take a sabbatical and it’s time to let your sweet tooth get spoiled with cakes, candies and cookies galore.
MOTHER MOUSSE
“If you’re going to cheat, you’re better off cheating with something good,” said Joan Scheheen co-owner of Staten Island’s Mother Mousse, which has locations in Travis and Grant City.
The two stores are serving up some amazing Halloween treats for the season, including a pumpkin cheese mousse, a twist on the traditional fall treat, pumpkin pie.
The mousse is made with ingredients so fresh you can practically see a jack-o-lantern with every bite.
If you’re trying to be somewhat “good” during Halloween, get the personal size for $4 a cup. Or splurge and get the pie size for $18.
To see what other sweets the stores offer, visit its Web site, mothermousse.com.
Hurry in. These Halloween-themed treats, including cookies and cupcakes, will disappear like ghosts come next Tuesday.
ALFONSO’S
Alfonso’s Pastry Shoppe, located in 1899 Victory Blvd., Meiers Corners, is serving up the most delicious petit fours, a moist almond pound cake with raspberry filling with either chocolate or vanilla frosting. Yes, it does sound decadent, but at only $.80 apiece, it’s anything but heavy on your wallet.
The shop also offers spooky-looking cookies, cupcakes with orange sprinkles and cakes for the season. To learn more or to order a specialty cake in advance, call 718-273-8802.
EGGER’S
For a limited time, Egger’s ice cream parlor, located at 1194 Forest Ave., West Brighton, offers special seasonal flavors like pumpkin or black raspberry ice cream.
You can get these fall flavors either on a cone or in one of Egger’s custom-order cakes, which need to be ordered five days in advance.
Desire an ice cream cake spooked out in a cool design? Select one of its ready-made cakes with either chocolate or vanilla filling and ask the staff to decorate it for you. A medium cake that feeds 14 to 16 people is less than $26.
If you’re the type who likes creating sweets in your own kitchen, check out this fun, easy recipe you can create with your kids.
You will need:
*A store-bought pound cake.
*Halloween-shaped cookie cutters.
*Chocolate icing.
*Orange sprinkles.
Remove cake from the box and cut into two-inch slices. Have your child use the cookie cutter to pierce through each slice, creating the Halloween shape they want.
Ice and sprinkle until you reach the gooey consistency you and your kids desire.
Eat as many as you want and don’t feel guilty until the day after Halloween.
Delicious Cakes specializes in creating beautiful and delicious - yet afforadable cakes for any occasion. We are a family owned and operated business that has served this area for over 20 years. We strive to make designing and ordering your cake a pleasant and convenient experience
Fall is all about vibrant colors and - in the food world - sumpuous flavors. For a beautiful fall cake, check out this delicious Pineapple-Mango Upside Down Cake (with Fresh Caramel Sauce)! This dessert makes a sweet ending to any fall meal, and is beautiful to serve both friends and family (makes a great impression when served at the table!). It turns out very moist with a light caramel topping over the fruit that 'marbles' down into the cake. I've also included a super-easy caramel sauce for serving (completely optional, as this cake is also excellent served on its own). Made with tropical fruits plus coconut milk, this cake is bound to please everyone at your table - perfect for a weekend treat. ENJOY! (photo by D.Schmidt
Cake lovers were there in huge numbers at BurJuman on Thursday, October 13th, as the ‘Cakes for a Cause’ bake sale saw some of Dubai’s leading hotels, confectioners and independent bakers offer up tasty treats in support of the Safe & Sound campaign.
The mall was engulfed in the tempting scent of baked goodies, as a number of the city’s popular names in confectionary including Kitsch, Sweet Lane Cakes, Simply Delicious, Fooderati Arabia, Ginny’s, Dome Café, Brownie Point, A Touch of Frosting, Peace of Cake by Nidhi, Glittery Jimmies, Vanilla Sukkar, Slice of Life, Home Bakery, Bloomsbury Cupcakes, Frosted Fantasies, Sugar ‘n’ Frost, Kulsum Khalid, Reverie, Frosted Miracles, Sweet Stuff, Lino's Coffee and Simply Irresistible sold a variety of fresh cakes, cup cakes and more. Additionally, pastry kitchens of the Mövenpick Hotel Jumeirah Beach, Al Maha Luxury Resort and Spa, Raffles Dubai, Marco Polo Hotel, Radisson Blu Hotel - Dubai Deira Creek and the City Max Hotel Bur Dubai joined in to support the cause with a tempting range of beautifully created bakery treats.
The event, organized by Safe and Sound – one of the region’s largest and most extensive breast cancer awareness campaigns – offered mall visitors the unique opportunity to satisfy their sweet cravings while serving a good cause. 25% of all funds collected by the Safe & Sound’s ‘Cakes for a Cause’ will be donated entirely towards the Safe and Sound Campaign and utilized towards providing free check-ups and mammograms, supporting patient care, extending the educational outreach and raising awareness for the cause. All fund collection and usage is monitored by Red Crescent.
In its fifteenth consecutive year since it was first launched, BurJuman’s non-profit campaign has once again teamed up with a number of organizations in order to generate the furthest outreach possible. Partners for the 2011 campaign include Dubai Events and Promotions Establishment (DEPE), ADCB, Amber Clinics, Del Monte and UniCare Medical Centre.
The undisputed Queen of Cakes is in the kitchen of her magnificent Buckinghamshire home scrutinising a Victoria sponge I’ve baked in a desperate bid to impress her.
Having used the finest organic flour, free-range eggs, unsalted butter and caster sugar and followed a trusted recipe passed down from my great-grandmother, I was — until two minutes ago — pretty confident that it not only looked good, but would taste divine.
Now, as Mary Berry casts a gimlet eye over the middle layer, which seems to be haemorrhaging raspberry jam, and questions whether my sugar dusting is, in fact, only there to disguise the cracks, my ego is feeling as fragile as a meringue nest.
Oh crumbs! Mary Berry holds up the Victoria sponge baked by Mail writer Jill Foster
‘Don’t start with the excuses now,’ she scolds, as I mutter something about the cake being bashed about on the two-hour journey to her house in the Home Counties (where else?).
Of course, the 76-year-old author of more than 70 cookery books is smiling as she reprimands me.
But this is exactly the kind of gentle but no-nonsense approach that unnerves contestants and delights viewers on The Great British Bake Off.
The show, which pits 12 amateur cooks against each other in a ‘bake off’ to find the nation’s best baker, has been an unlikely hit for BBC2.
Whether it was the candy-coloured kitchens, the stately home setting or simply the scrummy confections rustled up every week, everyone seemed to have a view on whether Holly’s croquembouche would crumble or if Mary-Anne’s syllabub was too syrupy.
More than five million viewers tuned in for the final this week to see 41-year-old Jo Wheatley from Essex crowned the winner.
But a large part of the show’s success is down to Mary Berry, whose name has been synonymous with delicious traditional cooking for decades.
Alongside fellow baking expert Paul Hollywood, she is a reality TV judge with a difference. Never as caustic as the dreaded Cowell nor as harsh as Craig Revel Horwood, her standards may be exacting but her comments are always considerate. One TV reviewer has hailed her and Hollywood the greatest reality TV judges of all time.
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Materials>twocopies of -----3whole eggs,refinedsugar---- 150g,low-glutenflour----- 120g,butter---- 15g,milk----- 15cc
<Practice>1eggsadd sugar,flour,mixwithmixer-likeplayto make into ablistering,ifthe temperature ofeggsinthiscold,warm watercan beforty degreesc,heating,easier toproducesoftand flexible,goodeatcake. (2)thescreeningoflow-glutenflourwith 1of thecompound,mixwithwoodenspoon. 3will beimperviousto meltthemilk,creamrapidmixingmaterialinto the2.Ifthismixingis not enough,the cakewilltastethe finished productbubbleslarge andrough,whenmixingthe cakewillhardenoverShi,no bubble. 43feed into thecakewill beabouteight fullmodel,into thehundred and eighty degreeCovenbakefor about 30minutes. Notes
Tips formakingthe cake: Want to makethe entrancesoftsponge cake,cakemixdepending onthemethod ofbubbling,if they containa lot ofbubbles,the bubblehas notgonebefore they canquickly create,therefore,tocutway tomixmaterials.Cleaningthe container ormixeris also very importantwhenequipmentcontaining theoil, eggsthatbubblescan not beplayedto.
