Chocolate cake for a coffee lover, v1

[magid]

I started with the thought of my usual vegan chocolate cake, but since it was to be a birthday cake for a coffee addict, I wanted to make it a bit more intense, and add coffee in, making more of a mocha cake. I replaced half of the soy milk with coffee, to unsure of the effects to be confident enough to replace all the soy milk. I used the correct volume of vanilla, but it's triple fold instead of single fold. I also added some dark (70.5% cocoa) chocolate chips. This was the first time I'd made a single recipe cake, and I knew I'd be putting stuff on top, so I didn't want it to slump in the middle as it cooled. I let it stay in the oven a couple of minutes longer than called for, to be on the safe side. Once it had cooled, I topped it with a glaze made of powdered sugar and coffee. That, in turn was topped with more of the chocolate, melted enough to be spreadable.

The verdict: good, but I should've taken it out of the oven a bit sooner, and try all coffee next time.

Comments

[coorr.livejournal.com]

I thought the cake was excellent. I agree that more coffee would have worked well but Im really not sure that you over cooked it. While it was not as moist and gooey as previous cakes it certainly wasnt dry and the dark chocolate left it really rich.

I liked the coffee frosting too.

Thanks for making the cake :-)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I think I just tend towards really moist cakes. But the intensity of the chocolate helped.

You're welcome :-)
It was fun to figure out something appropriate yet new (= fun to experiment).

[gingicat]

Sounds yummy. Pity there really is no replacement for sugar.

BTW, browngirl posted looking for advice about canning jam, so I thought I'd point you her way.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried any of the sugar-replacers; I think I'd tend towards using them more with baked fruit things than baked goods where the chemistry is more complicated. (On the whole, though, this wasn't hugely sweet, not that that helps if one is avoiding all sugar.)

Cool that someone else is canning. Of course I'll advise if she wants, though I generally don't follow recipes exactly, nor do I use commercial pectins...

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

A recent New Yorker — the one with the camel at a watercooler on the cover, I think dated May 22 — had an excellent article about the history, state of the art, and future directions of the sugar replacment industry. Well worth the read. It makes it sound like the future will not be full of replacements for sugar, but rather of additives to combine with sugar to get the same sweetness from a much smaller volume.

Fascinating through and through.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Sounds like an interesting article; I should get my hands on it.

(It took me a while to parse the beginning of the first sentence, 'cause I was thinking of "recent New Yorker" = person who just moved away from NY...)

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

Nuts, you're right, how garden-pathy of me. Perhaps if I'd said "A recent N Y..." instead?

No, I suppose a rewrite like "There was an excellent article in a recent New Yorker..." is called for.

[magid.livejournal.com]

No rewrite necessary if you put New Yorker in italics.

[(Anonymous)]

I like the pertinent small caps in this case, though of course italics would be standard.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I can see that, though only one familiar enough with the periodical already would understand why small caps instead of the traditional italics...

[(Anonymous)]

Right. That's why it's cute. (I wasn't suggesting the small caps as a standard style rule, only appreciating that where italics would be standard and useful, small caps are a humorous and creative alternative.)

Can't figure out what "garden-pathy" means, however.

[mayica.livejournal.com]

For a non-coffee suggestion: I've got a (non-vegan) chocolate raspberry cake recipe that I make regularly where the buttermilk is replaced (entirely) by raspberry puree. Its another substitution well worth trying sometime, if you like chocolate and raspberry together. (I didn't come up with this; it's from _Bittersweet_ by Alice Medrich)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that sounds lovely! Er, if I ever get enough raspberries to have some left after eating lots of them. Are there any problems with seeds?

Another very nice raspberry-chocolate combination is Chocolove's raspberry chocolate bar, which has pieces of raspberry, not reddish gel.

[mayica.livejournal.com]

I generally use frozen raspberries, and usually strain them after defrosting & pureeing (although I think I've skipped that step when i was feeling lazy.)

I think the tang / acidity of the raspberries matters somewhat; i don't know if, say, strawberries would work as well. But now I'm thinking about blueberries, which could be interesting. Hm...

Where do you get the Chocolove bars?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Frozen raspberries! Of course. I don't have a strainer, but that could be remedied. (If I figure out where to store it.)

Blueberries sound good. Maybe strawberries would work if you put a few cranberries in with them?

Bread & Circus aka Whole Foods aka Whole Wallet for Chocolove stuff.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

There are soy milks with coffee/mocha flavoring out there -- I think I've seen a version from Silk? Maybe that could replace part of the liquid from the standard recipe if you make chocolate-coffee cake again.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Huh. The only flavors I'd noticed were vanilla and chocolate, but I wasn't looking particularly closely, either. Depending on the intensity of flavor, I might augment it with some coffee, or (as someone last night suggested) use coffee powder in the batter.

My problem would be that I don't know how I'd use up the rest of the container, though that could be worked out.

[(Anonymous)]

Why not simply make stronger coffee?

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm not a coffee drinker (one of the few, apparently); I don't have a way to make real coffee at my house. I debated going to buy a cup of coffee, then someone told me about coffee bags. So I got a box of those, and the bag was in the (started-out-hot) water overnight; I don't know how I'd make it stronger.

I could get a couple of espressos or something.

[(Anonymous)]

There are many solutions, but, given both the process you've alreday used and that it sounds like you have leftover coffee bags, why not try using the same process but with two bags instead of one?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me. Thanks.