mumble, mumble.

[evile]

Weather looks perfect for faire this weekend!

I tried the 5 minute chocolate cake recipe last night. It came out very dense and almost brownie-like. Not particularly tasty, IMHO, but not inedible...

My theory is that the cake flour was past its prime.

I'll experiment a bit, try adding things like vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, chocolate chips, etc. and see if I can make it any better than that.

I need to wake up and get some work done. I'm just so sleepy and lazy-feeling this a.m.

Comments

Cake!

[islenskr.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I would want to use butter instead of oil. And I would also want to put more cocoa in there, or chocolate. And regular flour, because cake flour makes my blood sugar crazy.

Hmmm. Sounds like time for experimentation!

Thanks for posting that!

Re: Cake!

[bramblekite.livejournal.com]

My friend interactiveleaf found the link first, I just stole it from her.

I think I will definitely try butter, and more or better quality cocoa. And I'm not really sure what the difference is between cake flour and regular flour, but I saw in the blog's comments that someone had tried 'self rising' and that worked well for them, so maybe that's what I'll try next.

One of last night's tasters also suggested maybe using less egg. I think that'd be do-able if you used egg beaters or something like that rather than an actual egg. OR mixed twice the recipe, used one egg, and then split the resulting batter between 2 mugs.

More experimentation is *definitely* needed. :)

Re: Cake!

[islenskr.livejournal.com]

Oh! Self rising flour has baking powder added - it's very popular in Europe. Cake flour is flour that is more finely ground, which results in a most even cake and sometimes a lighter cake. I can't eat it because it's absorbed into my system more quickly...that blood sugar stuff again.

I think if you cut back on the egg, you'd have to add some sort of leavening. I was wondering what made it rise and then realized that it was probably the egg - that's probably what makes it so dense, too. (Think flourless chocolate cake...LOTS of eggs.) And I bet if you used actual chocolate in addition to the cocoa, you could cut back on the butter/oil.

I wonder if you could just make a regular cake recipe, tip some batter into a mug and microwave it. THough, microwaving is so much different than baking in a regular oven.

Now I feel like making cupcakes! With butter cream frosting! (Did I ever send you the recipe I found a while back for chocolate buttercream that involved tempering eggs? It's *dreamy* and totally worth the hassle!)