Boiled Orange Chocolate Cake

The other day my mother in law told me she made a boiled orange chocolate cake and it was delicious. She had a piece of cake each day and she didn’t want to finish it. My mother in law is dairy intolerant and gluten intolerant. Therefore she doesn’t eat cake often but when she does eat then the cake must be a bomb. I immediately thought that’s something I must try!

This recipe came from a baker named Eleanor Ozich. The original recipe called for 2 cups ground almond. However I was short of ground almond so I mixed 3/4 cup group almond and 3/4 buckwheat flour together. It is still gluten free and delicious. I think you can substitute ground almond with any other ground nuts or gluten free flour or even plain flour, but you might need to experiment with the quantity because different ingredients have different absorption.

The cake was super moist, rich and fragrant. It had just the right amount of sweetness balanced by the bitterness from the orange peel and dark chocolate. If you have a sweet tooth you might wish to add more honey. Happy baking!

Boiled Orange Chocolate Cake

• 2 oranges
• 3/4 cup ground almonds
• 3/4 cup buckwheat flour
• 4 heaped Tbsp good quality cocoa
• 5 heaped Tbsp honey
• 5 free-range eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup good quality dark chocolate chips (optional)

1. Place whole oranges in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and boil for one hour.
2. Drain, then allow to cool.
3. Set the oven to 160C. Grease a cake tin with butter or coconut oil.
4. Cut oranges in half and place in a food processor (skin, pith, flesh and all). Process until smooth. Add remaining cake ingredients and process again until smooth. Fold the chocolate chips into the batter with a spatula.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Allow cake to cool completely before removing from tin or it may break.
7. Dust with cocoa if desired.

Red velvet cake

Today is the last day we stay in the current office, tomorrow our team (only our team) will be moved (I use “be moved” here because it is against our will!) to another office – a different location. It was sad to say goodbye to some colleagues as we became friends in the past years. It was my last chance to impress them so I decided to make a red velvet cake for morning tea.

If there is a chart board for most popular cakes, I am sure red velvet will be in the top of the list. For my curiosity I looked it up, basically it is just a chocolate cake with red food coloring. Why do people like it so much? Bearing this question in mind, I wanted to give it a go and find out myself. My cake was adapted from three recipes: Anna Olson, Martha Stewart and Diva Can Cook, it was moist with a hint of chocolate but it wasn’t over powering. The cream cheese frosting was delicious! Trying something different in this blog, I am putting a series of photos to show how the cake was assembled.

Why red velvet is the most desired cake, because of its color or taste? I am still not sure. If anyone know please post a comment here 🙂

Red velvet cake

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp double strength vanilla extract (or 2 tsps normal vanilla extract)
• 1 tsp gel red food coloring
• 1 Tbsp white vinegar
• 1/2 cup hot coffee

1. Preheat oven to 175ºC.
2. Sift and mix all the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt) together.
3. Use a mixer to mix oil and sugar together. Add the egg one at a time until combined, add vanilla.
4. Add dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Stir the white vinegar and food coloring together and then add this to the cake batter on low speed.
5. Scrape the bowl and add hot coffee and mix together, the batter will be runny. Divide the batter into two prepared 8-inch cake pans.
6. Bake the cake for 35 minutes or until it is done. Cool the cake complete before frosting.

Cream cheese frosting

• 226g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 340g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 4 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat the butter until fluffy, then beat in the cream cheese until well blended and smooth. Add the icing sugar in 2 additions. Beat in the vanilla.

Richard’s soccer cake

I have made a soccer theme cake again! But this time it was in a larger scale. The story was Richard at my work is retiring, so the office manage approached me to see if I was interested in making a cake for his farewell party. Surely I was up for the challenge. Richard’s favorite soccer team is Manchester United. Therefore they wanted me to make a soccer field cake with a soccer ball and a soccer team on top. The soccer team was stored bought – non eatable.

I have spent a lot of time on this cake, especially the painted MU logo. I was relieved when I finally put everything together. It was a three-layer chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache, covered with fondant. The logo, soccer ball and T-shirt were made of fondant. The soccer field was piped by royal icing. His name was made of chocolate. This cake was many firsts for me: my first big scale cake (350mm x 240mm); my first cake was eaten by 50 people, my first cake was created on demand.

In the farewell party I received many thanks from the manager and Richard’s wife, what an honour! It was the best reward to see the joy on their faces. 🙂

Richard’s soccer cake

Manchester United logo

T-shirt and soccer ball

Dog theme cupcakes

My colleague Rachel has recently owned a Leonberger dog. This is a giant dog breed. Her dog is just a puppy at the moment but it is a huge and cute puppy – brown coat, big ears and dark face. 🙂 Rachel was going to a Leonberger party so she asked me to make her some cupcakes. She suggested me making dog paws and dog bones, but I decided to bring it to the next level – make some Leonberger dog faces! I have made 24 chocolate cupcakes covered with chocolate ganache and fondant. Rachel loved the cupcakes especially the dog faces!

This is my go-to chocolate cake recipe, very easy and delicious.

Chocolate Cake (makes 1 big cake or 20 cupcakes)

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
•  2/3 cup cocoa
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/4 tsps baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 tsps vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2/3 cup hot coffee

1. Preheat oven to 175°C.
2. Sift dry ingredients together and place in a large mixing bowl.
3. Add eggs, oil, milk and vanilla and beat for a couple of minutes until combined.
4. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add hot coffee and mix together.
5. Pour into the prepared pan or cupcake liners bake until the inserted skewer comes out clean. Batter will be very liquid.
6. Cool for about 5 minutes in the pan. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Dog theme cupcakes

Bones on the cakes

Leonberger cupcake

 

Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake

This weekend I baked a chocolate and vanilla marble cake adapted from Rachel Allen.

I cut down the ingredients to about half of the amount to make a 6 inch cake. I think because I used too much cocoa powder or the ratio of the ingredient was wrong, the better, especially the chocolate batter was too thick. As a result the cake didn’t have a nice swirl effect. Therefore I am not posting my version here. Overall the cake was ok but not amazing. There is always a next time though!

Chocolate and vanilla marble cake

My first chocolate cake

I love chocolate but I am not a big fan of chocolate cake, especially chocolate mud cake, therefore I have never bake one before. However when I was planning to make a cake as a gift and I saw this Baker Ella’s recipe, I was so attractive to it that I decided to give it a whirl. Chocolate cake + buttercream + chocolate ganache, oh hell, who can resist it?!

For the cake: I followed the recipe except I put less sugar (this is what I always do for every cake recipe – to cut down the sweetness). Also I baked it in one 9in pan instead of two pans and then cut it in half to fill it. It was really easy to make and the cake turned out nice and moist. I loved the cake recipe! The chocolate morsels I used in the filling were too big, so it was very hard to spread the filling – a mark down for my cake (thumb down).

For the buttercream: I adapted another buttercream recipe which I had already used for a few times. I was pretty confident with my buttercream (thumb up).

For the ganache: I followed the recipe, but it wasn’t thick enough, so I added more chocolate (more than 1 cup) but it still didn’t reach the thickness as what was shown in the Baker Ella’s photos. When I poured the ganache on the cake, it ran all over onto the cake, the cake board, my turntable and the kitchen bench. I had to clean the mess up! Next time I will use less cream and butter. This is another mark down on my cake (thumb down).

The following photo shows the final product (the chocolate surface was reflecting the light and details surrounded in the room, I didn’t take a nice photo). It was ok but not as good as I expected. Anyway I didn’t get to eat the cake, but the feedbacks I got are: it was very sweet (for the adults), but the kids loved it, especially the buttercream!

If you want to indulge yourself with a cake, this is the one!