Chocolate and Avocado Cake

I admit,  I was sceptical.  I am completely well aware that you can use fruit and vegetables in cake batter.  Carrot cake is a thing after all, and I've read banana is a great substitute for...well, most things actually.  But this is my first time seeing avocado.  Especially as from what I understand it's not usually considered a 'dessert' fruit.  I've seen it used in savoury dinners and salads and as a dip.  It's not exactly sweet (I figured I'd try some whilst working with it. Decided I didn't like it) so would it really hold up in a cake?  Particularly in the buttercream since that's where it's flavour is going to be detected.  Well, I like trying new things so I figured why not?

So how did this come about?  Well, today is the fiancé's Mum's birthday and so obviously that's an excuse to make a cake.  Question was, what kind of cake?  When I asked the fiancé, his response was that she liked the angel food cake I made her last year.  I hate repeating myself though, even if that's partly because I want something I can post about on this blog.  So I was still lacking inspiration by the time Friday last week rolled around and I needed to know so I could make sure I had all the ingredients before I ordered my groceries.  Now Friday I was doing the fiancé's Mum a favour and sitting in her house waiting for people to come and pick up a giant parcel.  I ended up waiting on them for a total of 6 hours, which is really quite boring.  To amuse myself I borrowed her laptop and did what I usually do when I can't think of anything better to do (or don't feel like doing any of the things I actually brought with me), which was browse around on Pinterest.  Recently I've been trying to expand what I make for my dinner so I've been hanging around the food section a lot.  It was there I stumbled across a pin about a chocolate and beets cake.  The cake itself wasn't what got me though, it was the accompanying comment, which mentioned chocolate and avocado cake and it being really good.  Now, I know the fiancé's Mum likes avocados so thought this could be a bizarre yet interesting thing to try and make.  It helped that there seemed to be a lot of positive feedback for the cake from followers of the blog. 

And that's how I ended up with this cake recipe.  As for the buttons for decoration, I knew I was going to be doing that regardless since she loves buttons and I have a button mould, albeit it a tiny one that only makes three buttons at a time.  There are 42 buttons in total.  They also were originally standing up in the middle but then they wouldn't fit in my carry container so I had to smoosh them down a bit.  Ah well.

I've never worked with avocados before.  They are such a weird fruit!  I was having a good giggle as I peeled them and scooped out the inside.  I have no idea if mine were ripe enough but they were a bit of a pain to mash up.  I probably could have done with putting them in a proper blend rather than using a stick one, but alas my one broke.

I was really nervous about this cake since it was a bit of a wild card.  I was dreading it being awful, despite all the good reviews on Joy's blog.  I shouldn't have worried though.  It went down really well.  The fiancé's Mum thought the buttercream tasted like a strange, cherry marzipan.  Her Mum, who was there too, did not agree.  They both ate their slices though and the chocolate cake got lots of compliments.  Very moist and you wouldn't know it was made with avocado.  Personally I think the aesthetic left a little to be desired.  The buttercream did spill over edges slightly and in an uneven manner so it looked a bit messy.  The buttons were also a bit dulled because I did that awful thing of putting them in the fridge to set but that's because I had so many to do and no patience at all.  Even with putting them in the fridge it took me three hours to do them all.  I will say though, I love the wonderful, bright green colour of the buttercream.  I think it looks amazing against the chocolate cake.

Recipe - adapted from Joy the Baker

Makes 2 x 20cm/8inch round cake layers

Cake:

• 400g/14oz plain flour (I used gluten free)
• 60g/2oz cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 400g/14oz granulated sugar
• 60ml/2fl.oz vegetable oil (I used sunflower)
• 70g/2.5oz soft avocado meat (about 1 medium avocado)
• 500ml/17.5fl.oz water
• 2 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease two 20cm/8inch round cake tins.
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl.  Stir together.
3. Scoop the avocado meat into a medium bowl and mash thoroughly.  You may want to blitz it in a blender (I used a stick blender to give me a hand).
4. Once thoroughly mashed, mix in the oil, water, vinegar and vanilla extract.
5. Add the sugar to the wet ingredients and mix well.
6. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry and whisk by hand until smooth.
7. Distribute the batter evenly between the two cake tins.
8. Bake for 30-40 minutes until cakes are risen, slightly springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
9. Allow the cakes to cool in their tins before transferring to a wire rack.  Let them cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream:

• 200g/7oz avocado meat (2-3 avocados worth, ideally very ripe ones)
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 450g/1lb icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Put the avocado meat in a bowl (leave out any bits that have brown spots).  Mash thoroughly. (Again, I blitzed mine with a hand blender.  It probably wasn't as ripe as it could have been.)
2. Beat the lemon juice into the avocado meat until it lightens in colour and is smooth (though I had a few bits of avocado floating round in mine but don't think it really mattered in the long run).  You might want to use an electric whisk.
3. Add the icing sugar a little at a time, beating in after each addition.
4. Add vanilla extract and beat in.

Assembly:

• 100g/3.5oz dark vegan chocolate (optional for decoration)

1. Place one cake round on a plate.
2. Cover the top of it with half the avocado buttercream, smoothing it out with a spatula.
3. Place the other round on top and press down gently.
4. Cover the top of this one with the remaining buttercream and smooth out.
5. If making chocolate decorations, melt the chocolate in a glass bowl placed over a pan of gently simmering water. 
6. Pour chocolate into moulds (may have to be done in batches) and allow to set.
7. Decorate.

Angel Food Cake With Whipped Cream and Summer Fruits

Huzzah!  Finally a successful bake.  After two failed experiments it is nice to have something turn out right.  Twice in fact, because I made one and then realised I'd made the horrific mistake of not using wheat-free flour!  So I did it again.  So that's wheat free on the left and wheat-ful on the right.

Anyway, this is a birthday cake for my boyfriend's mum (and the spare is going to the school).  She recently gave me a lovely cupcake recipe book and had commented on how nice the summer fruit topped ones were.  So I knew exactly what topping I wanted to give her cake.  But what to go with it?  After some hunting I settled on something I've never tried to make before: Angel Food Cake.  Apparently it's very good if you're on a diet as it doesn't have any fat in it so really she could eat as much of this cake as she liked and not feel too guilty.  However, there was then the issue of finding a small version, since so many recipes involved 12 egg whites and large-ish tins.  Finally I stumbled across one that is baked in a loaf tin.  Perfect!  A delightfully simple recipe, though I made a couple of substitutions.

Recipe - Adapted from Cookie Madness (a great blog with some fabulous recipes!)

This cake is preferably eaten the day it is made but it would probably only last that long anyway.

Ingredients:

• 6oz/170g caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2.2oz/60g self raising flour (wheat free if you desire)
• 6 large egg whites at room temperature
• 3/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 180ml double or whipping cream
• Various summer fruits
• Some icing sugar for dusting
• Pink food colouring (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 9x5 inch loaf pan (mine was a bit narrower) with aluminium foil.  Do not use non-stick foil!
2. In a small bowl, mix half the caster sugar with the flour and the salt.
3. In a large (metal) bowl, whisk the egg whites until they are foamy and then add the cream of tartar.
4. Continue whisking until you reach the soft peak stage.
5. Start adding the sugar a bit at a time, still whisking but on your lowest setting.
6. When all the sugar has been mixed in, add the vanilla and whisk that in too.
7. Carefully fold 1/4 of the flour mixture into the egg whites with a spatula.  You need to be careful because the flour can fall straight through the egg whites and get stuck at the bottom so make sure you are actually mixing it into the whites.  
8. Repeat until all the flour has been mixed in.
9. Carefully spoon or pour the mixture into the foiled loaf tin and bake in the oven for about 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
10. Cool in the cake in the loaf pan on a wire rack to help keep its shape.
11. When cool, remove from the tin and gently peel off the foil.
12. Whisk the cream with some vanilla until soft peaks form.
13. If using food colouring, drop some drops into the cream and swirl through with a skewer.
14. Put into a piping bag with a large star nozzle (I used a Wilton 1M) and pipe swirls onto the cake.  I did three big swirls and then lots of little swirls to fill in the gaps.
15. Decorate with the fruit and then dust with the icing sugar.

Gingernut Biscuits, take two

Yesterday I did two lots of baking.  One was my first ever batch of shortbread, which I will be posting about shortly.  The other was a second batch of gingernut biscuits, though this time with wheat and gluten free flour.  Learning from last time I made sure to keep a good eye on them in the oven.  I also didn't put too much syrup in this time, so that probably helped too.  They certainly came out much better.  None of them caught.  They didn't flatten out as much as they did in the previous batch but that's not too bad.  They are still delicious apparently.

So, recipe can be seen here. And if you want to make them gluten/wheat free, just replace the flour with a free from equivalent.

Jam Tarts

Last week I was down in Essex visiting my family as I'd not seen them since November and not been home since August.  For some reason, being home resulted into a brief nostalgia moment as I thought to myself 'I've not made jam tarts'.  Jam tarts are one of my Dad's favourite things but I don't remember them being made in our house since I was a little girl.  My mother used to make them quite often.  I did consider trying my hand at them whilst there, but alas we had no jam.  I also don't trust the oven.  It's too complicated for my liking.  A shame since I would have liked to make jam tarts for my Dad.  Maybe next time.  I think I need more practice anyway.

However, once back in Scotland I still felt a need to try them and we have a stockpile of jam in this house.  So today I made 12 little tarts, 6 with raspberry jam and 6 with strawberry.  The pastry recipe came from The Best of Mrs Beeton's Cakes and Baking, which was sitting in our kitchen in Essex.  I made note of a few recipes I wanted to try, the shortcrust pastry among them.

The result....was not quite right.  I left them in the oven much longer than I should have done since I wasn't sure if the pastry was cooked properly.  It wasn't soggy or anything but it didn't seem to be changing colour, which is what I expected it to do.  This meant that they ended up having the consistency of Jammy Dodgers.  Of course, my boyfriend and I like Jammy Dodgers so we didn't see this as a bad thing.  Unfortunately, not very jam tartish.  Next time I'll take them out the oven when I'm meant to.

I also decided to try using a wheat and gluten free flour for the pastry, since my boyfriend's Mum isn't eating wheat at the moment.  Despite Jammy Dodger texture, I believe it worked fine as a substitute.

Recipe - Adapted from Mrs Beeton's Lemon Tartlets

Makes about 12 6cm diameter tarts

• 100g/4oz plain flour (either regular or wheat free)
• 50g/2oz butter
• Pinch of salt
• Some water
• About 18 tsp worth of jam in the flavour of your choice

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/395°F/Gas 6.
2. Grease a 12 shallow holed baking tray.
3. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
4. Add the butter and rub together between your fingers until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
5. Add water until you get a stiff dough.  I ended up using about 7 tsp of water.  Just add a couple of tsp at a time until you get the right consistency.  Press dough together with your fingers after each addition of water.
6. Roll the dough out on a floured surface and use cookie cutters to cut out the tarts.  This can be really tricky and you may need to add tiny bits of water to stop the dough drying out too much due to the flour on the surface.  You should have enough dough for 12 without any leftovers.
7. Spoon 1.5 tsp of jam into each tart.  As I said, I did 6 each or strawberry and raspberry jam.  No need for blind baking as nothing went soggy.
8. Put in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. (I had mine in for about 45, which is why I got Jammy Dodger tarts instead).
9. Cool on a rack.  Do not eat straight from the oven as the jam will be very, very hot.