Day 25: Praline Turtle Cake

We had some friends over for dinner so I thought I’d make a fancier cake for the occasion. Or I was just in the mood for chocolate; who needs an occasion, right?

The recipe comes from Country Living’s “Mom’s Best Cake Contest.” One of the winners, indeed.

The Recipe

1/2 cup(s)	butter
1 cup(s)	brown sugar
1 can(s)	(14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup(s)	chopped pecans
2 cup(s)	all-purpose flour
3/4 cup(s)	unsweetened cocoa
2 cup(s)	granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon(s)	baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon(s)	baking soda
1 teaspoon(s)	salt
2 large	2 large eggs
1 cup(s)	sour cream
1/2 cup(s)	canola oil
1 teaspoon(s)	vanilla extract
1 teaspoon(s)	white vinegar
1/2 cup(s)	fudge topping
1/2 cup(s)	chocolate chips, melted

1. Make the cake: Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms of two 9-inch round cake pans and fit a circle of parchment paper large enough to cover 1 inch up the side of each cake pan. Heat the butter, brown sugar, and sweetened condensed milk in a 2-quart saucepan over medium heat until the butter melts and the sugar is dissolved. Do not boil. Divide the sugar mixture between the prepared pans. Sprinkle 3/4 cup pecans over sugar mixture and set aside to cool. Combine the flour, cocoa, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Add the eggs, sour cream, oil, vanilla, and vinegar, and 1 cup hot water and mix with a wooden spoon until the batter is smooth. Pour the batter into the cake pans — over sugar mixture — and bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the cake center comes out clean — 35 to 40 minutes. Cool cakes in the pans for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pans and turn cakes out onto a cooling rack. Remove the paper and cool completely.
2. Assemble the cake: Spread the fudge topping over the sugar mixture side of one cake layer. Place the second layer over the first and drizzle with the melted chocolate and the remaining 1/4 cup pecans. Frost the cake sides with your favorite chocolate icing.

My Alterations

Looking at the recipe, I knew that if I didn’t cut it in half — even with guests coming over to help us eat it — I would end up with a massive cake again. Seeing as this is my twenty-fifth cake this month, I’m pretty much drowning in cake and not really interested in leftovers. So I used half of every quantity listed (although I didn’t want to figure out what half of 3/4 cup is, so I just used 1/3 cup instead).

There were a few errors in the recipe; firstly, the ingredients list calls for two lots of baking soda, so I just assumed it meant baking powder for one of them. Luckily, the amounts were the same, so it took most of the guesswork out. In the directions, there is mention of adding a cup of hot water to the batter, but that is not listed in with the ingredients. That threw me for a minute, but since the water is definitely needed to thin the batter before baking, it wasn’t a problem. Just a lesson in Reading Carefully, I guess.

I couldn’t track down condensed milk, so I used evaporated milk instead. I think it’s a bit thinner than condensed milk, so the sugar/butter/milk concoction was quite thin. When I poured the cake batter over the top, it sort of all mixed together instead of layering. Ah well.

I used dark chocolate chips for the drizzling part of the recipe, because I don’t have any milk chocolate chips and didn’t want to buy anything extra. Dark chocolate is better, anyway, so it’s all good. The caramel sauce is aimed for drizzling over ice cream. I figured it would work in other settings, too.

The Result

The baking parchment (greaseproof paper) worked really well, as you can see:

There would have been a lot of mess in my oven (okay, okay, a lot more mess) if not for that paper keeping most of the batter from bubbling over. The cakes baked in good time, and even though I halved the recipe, I had enough for two good-sized cakes. I even managed to layer them on top of each other and added the required caramel sauce and stuff.

The Verdict

Heavenly. Divine. Rich, decadent, lovely. The cake itself is just perfect, and I will probably use that as my basic chocolate cake recipe from now on. I think the sour cream really gives it a richness and depth of flavour that wouldn’t be there with just normal milk. Yum! The cake really does remind you of a praline turtle candy, so it’s a well-named recipe. It really deserved winning that cake contest, I have to say.

The Rating

5/5

I love this cake! It’s one of the best. I know I’ve said I don’t like nuts in my cakes, but I might have to repeal that statement for this one in particular. The caramelized topping worked amazingly well with this moist, rich chocolate cake. Delicious.

Day 20: Peach Upside-Down Cake

So it turns out that my camera has a Food setting, for taking closeups of food. Cake. Same diff. The colours turn out much more natural, and I’ve been struggling with that one recently, because natural light in Jolly Olde England is hard to come by. The pictures I took of this cake glisten. Not in a bad way, I think, but in an “Oooh that looks tasty!” sort of way. So I’m happy!

The peaches are very shiny in this cake, but that just makes it prettier to look at and more fun to eat. Recipe from Allrecipes. Some more and again.

The Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 (29 ounce) can peach halves, drained
• 1/4 cup flaked coconut
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Pour butter into a 9-in. round baking pan; sprinkle with brown sugar. Drain peaches, reserving 6 tablespoons of syrup. Arrange peach halves, cut side down, in a single layer over the sugar. Sprinkle coconut around peaches; set aside. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs until thick and lemon-colored; gradually beat in sugar. Add extract and reserved syrup. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add to egg mixture and mix well. Pour over peaches. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes; invert cake onto a serving plate. Serve warm.

My Alterations

I ran out of butter, so I think I used more like 1/4 cup. I basically just whacked my tub of butter in the microwave, and melted whatever was left in there. I didn’t measure it. I also used less brown suger — 1/4 cup — because that seemed like WAAAY too much sugar for one small cake.

I didn’t use peach halves, but peach slices. As you can see.

I was a bit wary of using almond flavouring instead of vanilla (mostly because I don’t much like the taste of it) and thought that peaches + coconut + almond = weirdness. But I did it anyway.

The Result

The cake itself isn’t anything special, really. It’s just a normal yellow cake with some fancy stuff on the top. But that fancy stuff — yummo! The flavour combination that worried me was actually fine. My husband is a bit fan of almond stuff (marzipan in particular) so he really enjoyed it.

Keep a close eye on it when baking, though. All the juices and caramelized sugar on the bottom of the cake make it difficult to tell when the cake is actually done. The skewer test isn’t always accurate.

The Verdict

Not bad! I was happy with the result, and that it was so easy to put together. This cake would look great on a buffet table or as a dessert for your next dinner party. I’ll definitely keep this recipe to hand for future use.

The Rating

5/5

Just because I’m not keen on almond flavouring shouldn’t detract from this cake’s rating. Pretty, easy, tasty. That says it all!

Day 13: Mexican Chocolate Cake

The Recipe

Makes 12 servings

1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon allspice
4 eggs
3/4 cup sugar, divided
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Grease the sides of a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with baker’s parchment. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a food processor, grind the almonds and chocolate chips with the cocoa until very, very fine. Stir the ground-chocolate mixture together with the flour and allspice and set aside.

3. Separate the eggs into yolks and whites. Put the whites in the work bowl of an electric mixer and the yolks in a separate mixing bowl.

4. Whisk the egg yolks with 1/2 cup of the sugar and the vanilla until light and fluffy, then whisk in the oil and set aside. Beat the egg whites with the vinegar and salt until the whites hold stiff peaks. With the mixer still running, stream in the rest of the sugar and continue beating for a few seconds to dissolve the sugar.

5. Fold one third of the egg whites and half the ground-chocolate mixture into the bowl with the yolks. Fold in another third of the whites with the remaining chocolate mixture, then fold in the last third of the whites to make a light, fluffy batter.

6. Transfer the batter to the prepared cake pan and bake for 30 minutes or just until the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Turn the cooled cake upside down onto a larger pan or directly onto a serving platter and peel away the baker’s parchment.

7. Coat the cake with chocolate glaze, then pipe the powdered-sugar glaze over the chocolate glaze in a spiral pattern. To form the lines of the web pattern, draw a knife across the glaze from the center of the cake outward at regular intervals.

For the Chocolate Glaze

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup canola oil

Put the chocolate chips and the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until smooth. Set aside to cool.

For the Powdered Sugar Glaze

3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons half-and-half, or as needed

Put the powdered sugar and half-and-half in a small bowl and stir until smooth. If the glaze seems pasty, add a little more cream. The glaze should be soft enough to flow steadily in a thick stream from the spoon, but not too runny. Put the glaze into a self-sealing food-storage bag and snip off one corner to create a simple pastry bag.

My Alterations

This cake is pretty complicated, what with the grinding of almonds and whipping of egg whites and all. I don’t normally go for cakes with this much prep work, but after the disastrous Plum and Cardamom cake, I wanted to try a complicated cake again. But succeed!

I used ground mixed spice instead of allspice. I don’t think there is much difference; just a semantics UK vs USA issue.

I didn’t do the fancy spiderweb frosting, though. I rarely have time for those extra bits.

The Results

This cake was unbelievably light! As I turned it out of the pan, I practically flung it across the room because I underestimated its weight so much.

It had a lovely rich chocolate taste, but I expected it to taste a little spicier than it did. The name of the cake made me think of ancient Mayan chocolate, eaten with chili peppers.

The really fabulous part of the cake was how light and feathery its texture was. The top of the cake was a little crunchy, but the rest of the cake was soft, moist and all-around lovely.

I brought this cake to a church function and it was gone in minutes. I wasn’t surprised!

The Verdict

This is a gorgeous cake. It tasted wonderful and even though the recipe was slightly lengthy and complicated, it was well worth the effort. I would be happy to make this cake again.

The Rating

5/5

This was a great cake!