Can’t decide between brownies or cake? Why not have both – or at least a perfect happy medium? Yesterday I had an extremely wonderful day, as did Jo, so I went home and baked! Since this was a celebratory baking experience, I went straight for my Celebrate with Chocolate cookbook by Marcel Desaulniers. I took the cake I was intending to (but didn’t) make for my birthday a few weeks ago & veganized it. The original recipe was for the “Pretty In Pink” cake, but since I’m more of a ‘Grease’ fan (not to say that I’m not a fan of the Ringwald 80’s era – I’m just drawn to musicals), I dub this cake ‘Cool Rider.’ This was the song sung by Michelle Pfeiffer’s character (Stephanie) in Grease 2 when describing to the socially awkward yet attractive Australian what kind of guy she wants, and it’s one of my favorites of all the Grease songs; that, and since she’s a Pink Lady…don’t question my train of thought, just go with it. This cake is definitely a dream on a mean machine, with hell in it’s eyes. No ordinary cake is gonna do! It looks like a lot of steps, but it’s really not much work – so don’t be put off by the long list of directions…
Ingredients:
Schnappy Cool Rider Cake:
canola oil for greasing pans
3/4 warm water + 3 TBSP ground flaxseed
2 oz (1/2 stick) butter, cut into 1/2-oz pieces
3/4 C + 3 TBSP buckwheat flour
4 oz bittersweet baking chocolate, coarsely chopped (or use semisweet and reduce the sugar to 1/2 C)
1/4 C Dagoba Xocotl Hot Cocoa (or any cocoa powder)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C turbinado sugar
1 TBSP any berry flavor schnapps (I used raspberry)
Directions: (The following directions are for using an electric mixer, although I went ahead and did it all by hand with a whisk, I was feeling frisky – so feel free to do the same.)
Schnappy Cake
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly coat the insides of 3 6X2-inch cake pans (or 4 mini-springforms; mine are approx. 5X1.5), set aside. Add 3 TBSP flaxseed to 3/4 C warm water, set aside.
2. Melt the chopped chocolate and 2 oz butter in the top half of a double boiler (or regular pan – just keep the temp really low). Stir until smooth – take off heat once smooth, set aside.
3. In a sifter combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Sift onto a large piece of parchment paper (or wax paper, or bowl), set aside.
4. Place the granulated sugar and flax-water mixture into a bowl of an electric mixer. Beat for 3 minutes until the mixture is combined and slightly thickened (I didn’t mix with my hand for 3 minutes..just until it looked right). Add the chocolate-butter mixture, mix to combine ~15 sec.
5. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Operate the mixer on low while gradually adding the dry ingredients; mix until incorporated, about 45 seconds.
6. Add the schnapps and mix on low for ~10 sec. Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a rubber spatular to finish the mixing until thoroughly combined.
7. Immediately divide the cake batter among the prepared pans (about 2/3 C or so per pan) and spread evenly.
8. Bake on the center rack of the oven until a toothpick (or knife if you’re uncultured like me) inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25-27 minutes. Remove the cake layers from the oven and cool in the pans for 15 minutes at room temperature. Invert the cake layers onto cake circles or cake plates, then turn baked side up again. Refrigerate the layers. Once they are unmolded, what do you do with the remnants that remain on the pans?
Scrape them up with a spatula and eat them, naturally! It would be a tragedy to let good cake crumbs go to waste!
9. Make Raspberry-Almond Icing (either Jo’s or Sara’s version, or use a different berry..whatever tickles you pink). I did sort of a middle-man version: 1/2 C almonds, 1/4 C nectar, 1 bag of frozen raspberries, 2 tsp almond extract.
10. Ice the layers and stack, refrigerating afterwards. Bring to room temp for about 15 minutes before serving – or eat straight out of the fridge.
Note: This cake can be made over 2 days. Day 1: Make the cake, covering each layer in plastic wrap then into the fridge. Day 2: Assemble the cake, and refrigerate 1 hour before serving. After assembly, the cake can stay in the fridge for up to 3 days before serving. Using the buckwheat flour makes this cake gluten-free (as long as your cocoa is too).
Happy Baking!!
Another miniature beauty of a cake!! – LOVE the magenta icing…it looks delicious š
Thanks MC!! I think the best part of this icing is all the different colors I can make it without ever having to use food coloring! What color will I come up with next? Heheee…. š
OMG, I haven’t tried this recipe but that looks delicious! Think the icing would work just as well with powdered sugar? With obvious changes to compensate. I only use organic nuts (organic everything actually) and they are EXPENSIVE so I try to conserve and use it in things I feel better about (in terms of healthy level) like granola….lol. Oh, and I do not have buckwheat flour…would you recommend using only that or can whole wheat or AP be used instead? **Why did you choose buckwheat flour btw? Or was that the cookbook’s choosing?** And I love Grease too!!!!
I think it would work with powdered sugar just fine! You could probably reduce the amount of nuts, maybe 1/4 C – and you could also use different nuts, like peanuts (i.e. cheaper nuts), and add the powdered sugar (start with 1/2 C or so), then to thicken it up to your liking. I hear ya, everything organic can get pricey when you’re just baking for the fun of it…and stuff that isn’t on the healthier side of things…
Regarding other flours – totally! Any flour you want could work – you’ll just have to adjust for moisture content. I say that because when I used to use spelt flour I always had to use more to get the right consistency, I don’t know why – the same with pastry flour when I wasn’t making pastry (it makes cakes and biscuits super soft). But whole wheat or AP, or even oat flour, would work just fine! I use buckwheat because it’s gluten-free, that’s all. Actually, I the cookbook called for AP flour…so there you go! š
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