Day 2: Black Magic Cake

Recipe taken from Allrecipes website. I adore this website. The search engine is very easy to use, and you can even search by ingredients rather than recipe name. The ratings system is very reliable, and I like reading through user reviews, gleaning ideas and inspiration from their experiences with the recipes. I found this recipe by searching for cakes with buttermilk in the ingredients list, because I had to use mine up and couldn’t think of anything else to do with it. Recipe is reproduced as it appears on the website.

The Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans or one 9×13 inch pan.
2. In large bowl combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center.
3. Add eggs, coffee, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes on medium speed. Batter will be thin. Pour into prepared pans.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and finish cooling on a wire rack. Fill and frost as desired.

My Alterations

The major alteration I had to make in this recipe was the coffee. I’m not a coffee drinker, and it was a bit of a head scratcher trying to think up a replacement. Coffee is pretty much just flavoured water, so I couldn’t replace the liquid with milk or cream. In the end, I chose to use peppermint flavouring. I put about a teaspoon into a cup of water, and carried on from there.

The Results

When mixing the dry ingredients, be careful. If you are heavy-handed like me, you’ll end up with flour all over your clothes! (whoops) I’m used to mixing the wet ingredients first and then adding dry ingredients a little at a time.

The recipe states that the batter will be thin, but I thought it was pretty average. It was thinner than the Carrot Cake batter, but there weren’t any chunks in the batter bulking it out like the other cake. However, there was a lot more batter than I expected. I didn’t want to overfill my round cake tins, so I ended up having to use three tins instead of two. I baked them for 25 minutes or so, checking on them every few minutes until I was happy they were done.

The cake turned out wonderfully. It is very moist and rich, but the chocolate flavour isn’t overpowering. The watered-down peppermint gives the cake a slight mint aftertaste, but it’s hardly noticeable.

I don’t usually go for frosting on my cakes. I’m not very good at making it, and I prefer the (shockingly) expensive store-bought stuff anyway, so frosting is a rarity. My husband saw the three layers stacked on top of each other with no decoration, and decided to make some Dream Whip for the cake. It’s very similar to Cool Whip, but it comes in powder form so you have to add milk and whip it up. I spread the dream whip onto each layer, along with some blackcurrant jam, except for the top which was dream whip on its own.

The other downside to frosting is that the cake has to live in the fridge for it to keep. My cakes go stale very fast in the fridge, and I don’t really like eating cold cake. But that’s just me.

The Verdict

This is a great chocolate cake. The peppermint mixed with blackcurrant jam was a bit odd, but not unpleasant or anything. If I did it again with peppermint, I would do a chocolate sauce to replace the jam; that would have finished it off nicely.

I don’t think I’ll make it again, though, simply because I can’t think of a decent substitute for the cup of coffee. There is already vanilla in the recipe, so that’s out… perhaps lemon would work? Melted chocolate? However, if you are a coffee drinker, this cake would be perfect for you.

The Rating

3/5

I gave this cake three stars simply because of my coffee troubles. It’s a shame, because it’s easily worth four stars otherwise!