chocolate & sweet potato cake

Chocolate & Sweet Potato Cake

(on the left is the original recipe from Bushveld Banquets, on the right is my heavily modified recipe)


180g butter at room temperature (100g)
360g brown sugar (50g)
4 eggs
450g cake flour (120g rice flour, 30g corn starch)
100g cocoa powder (50g)
15ml baking powder
180g dark chocolate
400g sweet potato, cooked, peeled and grated/mashed
400ml buttermilk (25ml normal milk)

Ganache (I didn't make)
20ml instant coffee powder
400ml cream
300g dark chocolate
120g butter

Cream butter & brown sugar together in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in the eggs one by one. Sift together the flour, cocoa & baking powder and fold into the creamed mixture. Fold in the melted chocolate, sweet potato and then buttermilk and mix well. Pour batter into a greased tin (or 2 if you're making a layer cake) and bake at 180C for 30 min until tester comes out clean (mine was a loaf pan and much thicker, I baked it for about an hour with aluminum foil on the top to keep it from getting too dark). Cool on a wire rack.

Ganache
Combine coffee powder, cream, chocolate and butter in the top half of a double broiler. Heat over simmering water until the ingredients have melted to a smooth mixture, stirring occasionally. Cool and then cover the sides and top of the cake.

fondants au chocolat

Fondants au Chocolat

Prep time: 10 min

Baking time: 12 min

120g dark chocolate + 4 squares (10g each)

3 eggs

80g sugar

35g butter

1 tbsp. flour (can be optional and therefore gluten free)

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler until smooth and creamy.

In a large bowl mix the eggs, sugar and flour. Add the chocolate and stir until smooth.

Fill each ramequin 1/2 way full, then add 1 square of chocolate and cover it with the rest of the batter.

Bake at 350F for only 12 min, no more! Let them sit for a few minutes but make sure they are served room temperature so the inside is nice and gooey. YUM! This is my favorite chocolate cake recipe ever, I'm sure you'll love it!

fondant chocolat noix de coco

Fondant Chocolat Noix de Coco

150 grams (2 cups) unsweetened dried grated coconut
170 grams (6 ounces) bittersweet chocolate (the best quality you can afford), chopped
125 milliliters (1/2 cup) light whipping cream (crème fleurette légère)
4 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
125 grams (1 1/4 cups) sugar

Serves 8 to 10.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Line a 24-centimeter (9-inch) round cake pan with parchment paper or use a springform or silicon pan. (Alternatively, you can bake the cake in a loaf pan, in muffin tins, or in ramekins.)

Spread the coconut on a rimmed baking sheet and toast in the oven for 7 minutes, stirring halfway through, until golden and fragrant. Remove from the oven (leave the heat on) and let cool.

Heat the chocolate and cream in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring from time to time, until melted and smooth. Transfer to a large mixing-bowl and let cool for three minutes.

Crack the eggs one by one, separating the egg whites from the yolks: set the egg whites aside in a medium mixing-bowl or in the bowl of a food processor with a whisk attachment, and add the yolks to the chocolate mixture, stirring well with a wooden spoon after each addition.

Add the coconut to the chocolate mixture, and stir to combine. The batter will be thick.

Using a handheld electric whisk, a manual whisk and strong forearms, or the whisk attachment of your trusty food processor, start beating the egg whites with the salt -- slowly at first, then at medium speed. When the egg whites get frothy, up the speed, add the sugar little by little, and keep whisking until the mixture is shiny and smooth. Lift the whisk from the bowl: if the eggs form an elegant swan-neck shape that doesn't collapse, you're all done.

Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture in three additions, working gently with a soft spatula to lift the chocolate mixture up and over the egg whites in a circular motion.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes, until the top is dry and the blade of a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. (Bake for 5 to 10 more minutes if you're using a loaf pan, and for 10 to 15 minutes less if you're using muffin tins or ramekins. Either way, keep a close eye on the baking and use the blade test to be sure.)

Transfer to a rack to cool completely and unmold carefully -- the cake will be quite fragile.

I can't take credit for this recipe which I found on Chocolate & Zucchini and made it yesterday. It turned out very well if I do say so myself! There were a few things that I did differently... First of all I don't have a mixer and so I was beating the egg whites by hand... As you can imagine my arm was very tired so I didn't get them to the stage that the recipe called for, but more of a a soft peak. I also hadn't noticed that it was at that point that the sugar should be added so I added the sugar with the coconut before the chocolate mixture was added. It turned out pretty well even with the changes. A lot more dense then it should have been but I love a rich chocolate cake! Plus it was really different to try and make a cake sans flour :-)

a new blog is born!

Following other bloggers I decided to share some of my favorite tried and true recipes with you as well as my experimentations with new ideas! As I'm an American living in France my recipes are now a real mix of metric and American mesurements. I'll post them as I have them written down, if you need conversions just ask!

To start off the blog I'll share my absolute favorite cookie recipe:

Chocolate-chocolate-craisin cookies

-Melt 8oz (1 1/4 cups) chocolate chips in the microwave or in a double broiler

While melting combine:
-3/4 cup brown sugar
-3/4 cup butter

Blend in:
-2 eggs
-1 tsp. vanilla

Combine and add the melted chocolate.
Then mix in:
-1 3/4 cups flour
-1/4 tsp. baking powder

Add:
10 oz chocolate chips
-1 1/4 cups dried cranberries (have found them at the Comptoir Irlandais, Monoprix and Carrefour in France)

Bake at 350F for 8 minutes. Better undercooked and fudgy in the middle ;-)