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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Happy Anniversary!


 It just occurred to me today that this blog is now 1 year old! Documenting all of my baking endeavours has been an interesting experience, and one that I still need to improve upon - especially my photography & food styling skills. However, it has been a lot of fun, and I plan on continuing indefinitely. :)

It's always nice to have cake for celebrations, so I present to you a chocolate bundt cake I recently made for a dinner party. This cake was super easy to make, i.e. no mixer required, which is something I always appreciate. The result is a very light, moist and chocolatey cake, thanks to the addition of yogurt and lots of chocolate, plus coffee to help bring out the chocolate flavour. Tastewise, it is not very sweet, so the ganache is a welcome addition to help sweeten the cake. However, at the party we served the cake alongside vanilla ice cream sundaes, so for that purpose the ganache could have been omitted. 
Chocolate Bundt Cake
yields 1 10-inch cake
adapted from Food and Wine (via Cookie Madness)

Cake:
56 grams (2 oz) bittersweet chocolate
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 large egg (at room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup strong-brewed coffee
1 cup buttermilk (at room temperature - I used plain yogurt)

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease a 10-inch bundt pan and coat evenly with some cocoa powder.

2. Melt the chocolate in the microwave. Let cool. Add the oil and sugar, whisk in until smooth, then whisk in the egg and vanilla extract.

3. In another bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.

4. Add half of the dry ingredients from step 3 to the chocolate mixture (step 2) along with 1/2 cup coffee and 1/2 cup buttermilk. Whisk until smooth.

5. Add the remaining dry ingredients, coffee, and buttermilk to the mixture. Mix again until the batter is smooth.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in the lower third of the oven for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

7. Cool on a metal rack for 10 minutes before inverting the cake.

Glaze:
85 grams (3 oz) bittersweet chocolate
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 tbsp corn syrup (I used Lyle's Golden Syrup)
1/2 tbsp unsalted butter

1. Bring the heavy cream to a boil in a saucepan.

2. In a bowl, combine the chocolate, syrup, and butter. Pour the hot cream over the mixture and let everything melt together for about 5 minutes. Whisk the mixture until it's smooth.

3. Allow the ganache to cool for about 5 minutes until it is thick, smooth and at a pourable consistency.

4. Pour glaze over cake and let it set for at least 30 minutes.

2 comments:

Lisa said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply]Best Blogger Templates

Ooh this sounds a lot lighter than the lemon ginger bundt cake I like to make! I should try this recipe since I already have the cake pan lol.

PD said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply]Best Blogger Templates

@lisa

Definitely try it, it's super moist! I know what you mean about the bundt pan, I feel like I should get my money's worth from it :P

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