Super Moist Egg-less Chocolate Cake

  Or Black Beauty. I'd like to call it that. It was wonderfully black in colour.

   We were out of eggs. Dad asked, "What do you need eggs for?"


   "I was thinking of making cake?"


   "Then we're getting eggs tonight!"


   Hopeful they will. I was in the mood for baking right then and there though, and decided that I wouldn't wait. I googled 'eggless chocolate cake' and found this recipe. After being used to the DFCC, it was nice to make plain, chocolate cake without any topping. No fuss, no mess. According to the blogger who posted it, the cake was good enough without the need for a topping, so I went with her suggestion. 

   And it is pretty good. That is, if you like super, dark chocolaty cake. If you'd rather have a topping, then by all means go for it. I like how smooth it looked when it came out of the oven, with just a few tiny cracks on top. And how easy it is to make. You only need one bowl and a hand whisk for mixing. As well as measuring spoons and cups. And a spatula. I can never make cake without my spatula.

This was taken using a flash.
What a huge difference from the first photo!

   The texture is spongy and not too crumbly, and the colour really dark. I'm a goon at taking photos, and this cake was extra tricky because of its colour. Oh well. I had three slices before I knew it. And the others aren't even back home yet.


SUPER MOIST EGG-LESS CHOCOLATE CAKE
Sources: Love2Cook & Dapurku Sayang


Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 cocoa powder
a pinch of salt
two tablespoons milk powder
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cup cold water (from the fridge)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
1/2 cup vegetable oil (apparently you can also use melted butter/margarine or cooking oil)
1 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar (which I forgot. Whoops)


1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder into a large mixing bowl.
3. Add salt, milk powder and brown sugar into flour mixture. Whisk until well combined.
4. Measure water into measuring cup and add in vanilla extract. Add to dry ingredients and mix using whisk, making sure there aren't any lumps.
5. Add vegetable oil and whisk until well-combined. Apparently you can also use melted margarine or butter (omit salt if you use margarine or salted butter) or cooking oil, but I don't recommend the latter. (I've used cooking oil once for pastry and didn't like the taste.)
6. Add lemon juice/vinegar and mix well. (I forgot this part so I don't know how it affects the cake).
7. Pour into 8x8-inch pan. Or you could use a smaller, round pan if you want a taller cake.
8. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Test for done-ness using a toothpick- poke one until it reaches the bottom of the pan, wait for 5 seconds and pull it out, If it comes out clean, it's done.
9. Slather some topping on top if desired. I didn't bother.

I was... uh-hum... trying to take a photo while holding the camera in one hand.
Not a good  strategy.

   This is not a cake for wowing people. More of a I-need-a-good-cake-in-45-minutes sort of cake, maybe for serving some guests? It's nice and simple and uncomplicated. you won't have a heart attack making it. Although my whisk did fall out of the bowl two times. 

Crime scene!

Washing up!

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake

   What a name! Though I don't really fancy it, the person who posted the recipe (the Kitchen Guardian, whose blog is lovely) asked that we name the cake as it is, so Devil's Food Chocolate Cake it is. I've made this cake two times. The first one looked a total mess that I named it Chocolate Mess Cake, but it tasted lovely. I followed the proper measurements for the cake, but as I only had 100g cream cheese (the recipe calls for 250g) I made some adjustments. The same goes for the chocolate ganache, which I halved but later wish I hadn't. Hehe.


   This cake turned out to be even more popular than the red velvet cake. I made it at 12 a.m. and chilled it overnight in the refrigerator. The next day I managed to eat one slice before going for my driving class. When I came back, only a very thin slice remained! I decided that the next time I made it, I'd make two cakes so that the result would be taller- which means that you can cut thinner slices so that everyone can have several goes at eating it instead of just once or twice.


   This is the first cake. Just two layers since I only made one cake. I only put 5 tablespoons sugar to the 100g cream cheese so it was a little sour, but I still liked it. I divided the batter into two and baked each layer separately because I didn't want the bother of having to cut the cake in two later. By some fortunate or unfortunate incident, I accidentally baked the first layer at 110C instead of 160C, so it took longer to bake but somehow yielded a lovely, moist texture. (The photo below's not that good, but I think you can see that the top layer is slightly moister).

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake version 1
You don't want to see the whole cake. You really don't.

      Then, Littlest Brother requested that I made the cake for his birthday. So we went to Tesco and got some more cream cheese. Since it was already a few weeks after Raya, they'd restocked most of the supplies and I found quite a number of different brands for cream cheese. As usual, of course, I wanted to find one with an establised and recognised Halal logo, and found two- the KRAFT Philadelphia cream cheese which is what we usually get, and another brand named Tatura, which comes from Australia. The Tature one was much cheaper, 250g for about RM 7.99 while the Philadelphia cheese was priced at nearly RM 12.00. So I bought two of the Tatura cheese. They look like this:


    When we got home, I started making the cake. I knew it was about to become one of my nocturnal baking adventures since I planned to make two cakes, wait for them to cool and frost them, etc. This time I followed the recipe exactly, because I planned to use one batch of chocolate ganache and cream cheese frosting for two cakes. 


   I actualy planned to make four layers out of the two cakes, but I made a mistake when I divided the batter... long story... so instead I ended up with three layers. Which was good anyway since there would not have been enough frosting and ganache! Frosting the cake was messy, I didn't have a proper cake stand, but I had an idea that if I spread the cream cheese and chilled it in the fridge for a while first so that it'd firm up a bit, I wouldn't have so much trouble spreading the ganache on top (like I did with the first cake). It worked, but I think next time I'll make the cake earlier during the day, and do the frosting and layering at night so that I'll have more time for chilling the cake. 


   Anyway, here is the recipe. I first found it in Kak Rima's blog, who had Kak Edi from Adorable Cupcakes recommend it to her, who in turn took it from the Kitchen Guardian, who took it from a book called Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski. Phewwh! That was long. KG requested that we give the proper credits, which I hope I've done correctly. Shelly Kaldunski, is, by the way a food consultant for Martha Stewart Living. No wonder it's such a good recipe!


Devil's Food Chocolate Cake
links to original recipe: here, here and here


Cake: 
(I made 2 cakes)


1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder 
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons (about 65 gram) butter 
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence
1/4 cup buttermilk (or fresh milk with a few drops of lemon juice/distilled vinegar)
1/2 cup warm water (I used 1/4 warm water and 1/4 milk)

Grease and line cake tin with baking paper. (I used a 7-inch cake tin)
Sieve flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate soda, salt in one bowl.
Beat butter with sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat until combined.
Add dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder etc) alternately with liquid ingredients (buttermilk + warm water) in three portions.
Add vanilla extract/essence. Mix until well combined.
Bake for about 30 minutes at 160C or until just cooked. 

Cream Cheese Frosting
250 g cream cheese, room temp (I used Tatura cream cheese)
125 g butter, room temp
3/4 cup icing sugar, sifted (I reduce the amount from 1 cup so that we could taste the cheese)
1 tsp vanilla extract/essence
a few drops of lemon juice, optional

Beat cream cheese and butter, just until creamy. Add the icing sugar, vanilla and lemon juice and mix until well combined.


Chocolate Ganache
3/4 cup non-dairy whipping cream (original: 200 ml double cream with at least 30% fat content)
200 g dark chocolate, chopped (original 250g)
a pinch of salt (which I didn't put)

Heat cream until just at boiling point. Add chocolate (and salt) and stir. Remove from heat when chocolate has melted and continue stirring until well mixed. Leave to cool.

Cool cake completely, spread the cream cheese frosting and pour cooled ganache on top. Make sure the ganache is cool but still pourable, if you leave it for too long it'll get really thick and becomes a little difficult to spread.


Chill cake overnight in the refrigerator. This is what I did because we prefer cakes that come out of the fridge nice and cold. I think it also allows some time for the ganache and cheese to be absorbed into the cake for a bit, which helps to make it even moister. Yum!


   This is what it looks like from the outside. You can see that I've a lot to improve in my cake frosting skills. The bits of paper that you see underneath was an attempt to utilise this tip I learned which says that you can slip long strips of paper under the cake (about three strips) which you can later remove after you've finished frosting. This will help to reduce the mess, but it didn't work because the paper stuck fast under the cake!

   This is what it looks like from the inside. (Oooppss I forgot to remove the baking paper). Three layers! I think this is the best cake I've made yet.

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake version 2
Oh my God, what is that on top of the cake???
Oh. An extra large cake crumb. Thank goodness.

   I can't wait to make it again! Maybe when Big Sister comes home for the weekend?

Batik Cake a.k.a. Hedgehog Slice

I know, I know, I need to work on the presentation. Next time, huh?

   I've made this cake twice. Once for ifthar at home. The second was when I went to KakYong's (two or three days ago). I'd promised to take some baked goodies for her, but I didn't have time to make any so hopefully this Batik Cake made up for it.


   I've known and eaten this cake ever since I was five and I've always loved it. We used to make the crunchy sort though- no eggs. The biscuit and chocolate always got stuck to your teeth and brushing them was a lot of work! I discovered that people have become more creative and instead of just dumping the whole lot of biscuit pieces into the chocolate mixture, you arrange them, layer by layer, and the cake turns out really pretty when cut. I forgot to take a picture of the second cake (which turned out nicer than the first one).


   The fun thing about this recipe is that you use everything up in one go (well, perhaps not the biscuits). The cake is sweet and really chocolaty. There are several versions of the recipe (some also include cocoa) but I just followed the one with the fewest ingredients.


   The following recipe is based on the second cake I made at KakYong's, but the photo is from the first one. I'm too lazy to go and check the recipe at Wendy's, so this is what I remember putting in and doing:


BATIK CAKE a.k.a. HEDGEHOG SLICES
Sources: Wendy and Kak Hana


*Note: Wendy provided a really useful step-by-step tutorial. Thanks!


1 regular-sized can condensed milk
1 200g packet Milo (or your favourite malted chocolate drink)
4 eggs, lightly beaten
150g or 2/3 cup butter (cut in cubes)
1 packet Marie biscuits
1 tsp vanilla ( optional-I didn't put it in)


In a saucepan, stir together condensed milk and Milo until well combined.


Stir in eggs and mix until well combined.


Put saucepan on stove and put in butter cubes and turn on heat to medium low. Cook custard until thickened, then turn to low heat. Cook until mixture becomes think and grainy. Turn of heat.


Hah, this is where I get lazy. Go to Wendy's blog and look at her step-to-step tutorial. I should have told you to do that in the first place. Apologies... getting a little sleepy. Next time I'll try to include photos of my own step-by-step attempts, haha.


Thinking of making this when we go back to Kedah for Eid (there'll be a stove at the homestay so yay!)

Chocolate Marvel Pie

   Arrrggghh!!!!

   I already posted this recipe and accidentally deleted it! Both this and the post on the first Chocolate Pie I made! Allow me to scream again!

   Oh well. I'll just re-post the recipe for Chocolate Marvel Pie, but no lengthy descriptions about my blunders this time (fuming).

   Anyway, this was my first successful attempt at a good pie crust, and the filling was very good too! Dad has requested that I make it again! Kakyong and Iman will also definitely love this too, the filling has a mousse-like texture that's really delicious.

   No photos though; there was an incident but I'm too lazy to re-describe it. Huh.

CHOCOLATE MARVEL PIE   

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook

9-inch Baked Pie Shell

6 ounces semisweet chocolate pieces

2 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp milk

4 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Bake pie shell.

In saucepan, heat chocolate pieces, sugar and milk over low heat, stirring until chocolate is all melted. Cool. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time. Stir in vanilla.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff. Fold in chocolate mixture. Pour into baked pie shell. 

Refrigerate several hours or overnight. (which I did for 8 hours)

If desired, garnish with whipped cream and sprinkle with diced almonds.

Serve and enjoy!

Note to Kakyong: Be sure to ask me about The Incident Involving a Slice of Pie and a Container of Rice. Hehe.

For Aiman With Love... Martha's Double Chocolate Brownies

   This is all that was left when I had the chance to take a photo.

   One again I lament the fact that I never bought that digital camera that I'd wanted for so long. What can I say? Money just wont stay with me. I'm not a crazy shopper, so I have no idea where it all goes. I'll have to fix that phone of mine and then make do with the photos that it can take. If the light is good, my old Sony Ericsson phone is not too bad, but Dad's phone... huhu. At least it can take photos, I guess.


   I went crazy and baked three things in one day. Aiman was going back to Terengganu the day after, so I wanted to (take the chance to) make her something to take back. She wanted Martha's Double Chocolate Brownies which I made last year, I think, which she remembers fondly as having been very moist which she likes.


   So I Googled the recipe (when I made them last, I referred to Martha's book, which I loved but has now returned to its rightful place at the Kelantan Public Library) and made them.


   Let me say that they were the best brownies I ever baked! They were just nicely done, without being over or underbaked (which happens a lot to most things I make), and oh so chocolaty. I wish I hadn't reduced the sugar but they were still good. 


   I hope my little sister (who is actually a lot taller - and bigger, hehe- than me) enjoyed them!

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Martha's Double Chocolate Brownies

taken and adapted from Martha Stewart

[Click here to see original recipe]

Ingredients

1/2 cup margarine or butter

6 ounces dark chocolate

1 cup castor sugar

3 large eggs

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup plus 2tbsp all purpose flour, sifted

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Line an 8 x 8 inch pan with baking paper.

3. Melt margarine (or butter) and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Stir until smooth.

4. Remove from heat and add in sugar, whisking until combined.

5. Whisk in eggs, one by one. 

Allow the mixture to cool a little before doing this or you'll have bits of cooked egg white swimming around your batter. Not good.

6. Fold in flour and mix until just combined.

7. Pour batter into pan.

8. Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes. Check using a toothpick, if it comes with with some crumbs it's done.

9. Cool before cutting into squares.

Brownie Day Part 2: Banana Brownies

Let's Go Bananas!!!

Pisang/Bananas

   I love bananas. When I was little, I used to be scared of eating raw bananas because the flesh seemed so soft that if they were too ripe, I felt that there would be little maggots in them. Yuck. Let's stop there.


   I have thankfully grownup and am no longer that silly little girl. I love bananas (that's the second time I said that!) I am sometimes overwhelmed by the many different types of bananas that we have in Malaysia. Pisang kebatu, pisang emas, pisang susu, pisang awak, pisang tanduk, pisang raja and many more.


   We had some overripe bananas in the fridge. Pisang kebatu, I think. We fried bananas dipped in batter and had them the day before, but there some left and Mum popped them into the fridge. I looked for recipes for which I could use them, and found this one. I'd just put the peanut butter chocolate brownies into the oven, but I was feeling all hyped up and I felt like baking something else. 


   Two kinds of brownies in one day? Fantastic! We could compare the flavour and texture (yeah, yeah) and see which worked better for our tastebuds. Most importantly, there'd be more to eat!

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Ramblings on the Recipe

You can see the banana chunks. Oh yum.

   It's wonderful what you can discover on the internet. Sometimes, whenever I get frustrated because I didn't have a particular ingredient needed for a particular recipe, I'd Google and then goggle at the vast amount of recipes available on the internet.


   Since we had a lot of chocolate in the house at the moment, I decided to go with this recipe. However, we only had one pack of butter left in the fridge, and I wanted to save that for something special. So I substituted the butter with margarine. I have read that margarine contains more water than butter, and whatnot, but I've grown up with margarine- we used to spread margarine on slices of bread and scatter the top with sugar. It's a lot cheaper than butter too. I also love the smell. If you don't like margarine, go ahead and use butter. No worries.


   The recipe called for 4 bananas, but it didn't say how big they should be, so I dunk in all the leftover bananas that we had (about 5 1/2 medium to small bananas). 


   And... as usual I reduced the amount of sugar. All that chocolate and bananas would contribute a lot to the sweetness, I thought, and I didn't the taste to be overwhelmed bu sugary-sweetness.


   I also used a bigger pan. The recipe suggested an 8 x 8 inch pan, but I used a much bigger one, about . I lowered the temperature to 170C to suit our oven, and started with 50 minutes so that I could decide how lone they needed to be baked. I'm prone to overbaking stuff, which usually results in burnt tops, hoho, so I had to be extra careful.

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THE Recipe

[Click HERE for original recipe]

Ingredients:

350g dark chocolate (or whatever works for you)

250g margarine or butter

4 eggs

5 1/2 medium sized bananas (about 1 1/2 to 2 cups i think)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup castor sugar

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat over to 180C (170C for my oven). Line a baking pan using baking paper or foil.

2.Melt margarine (or butter) and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a simmering pot of water.

3. While waiting for the chocolate to melt, mash the bananas and the eggs in a large bowl.

-I whisked the eggs for a bit before putting in the bananas. I used the whisk to mash the bananas. 

At first I thought of whizzing the batter in the blender to really crush the bananas, but I liked the look of the banana bits floating around in the egg batter, and felt that it'd lend texture and more flavour if I left it just like that. 

So I did.

4. Add the flour, sugar, cocoa powder and baking powder into the egg mixture and mix until well incorporated. It'd be a good idea to sift the dry ingredients first (which I didn't do).

5. Pour in the chocolate-and-margarine-or-butter mixture into the batter and mix well.

6. Pop the pan into the oven and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size of your pan, your oven and how much you want the brownies to be cooked.

I set the oven at 50 minutes, and decided to stop there. 

7. What are you waiting for? Eat! (or take photos first, whatever works for you)

*****************************************************

The RESULT

This is what it looks like, just out of the oven.

   I truly love this recipe! At first it seemed that there was too much batter, so I instead of using an 8 x 8 inch pan I used one that was around 11 x 11 inch. However, it worked quite well and the most important thing is that we had more space to cut, which means more pieces of brownies! 

   I may have underestimated the amount of bananas. I thought I'd put quite a lot in, but maybe the bananas in the original recipe were large sized. You can still taste the bananas though, but if you want more flavour I suggest adding even more bananas.

   The margarine worked really well, I think. Next time I'll try using butter to test the difference. 

   The texture was crumbly and soft and just a little fudgy, which I liked. It was definitely different from the peanut butter chocolate brownies! I'm definitely making this again, hopefully when my sisters come home.

*****************************************************

Go crazy. Please.

   Therefore I suggest you go crazy and make two kinds of brownies like I did- only to see how different the two are. Honest. If you feel like you'll have too much brownies on hand, you can always put them on a nice plate and give some to your neighbours (which I planned to do at first but never did because we had just enough for the 5 of us!)

   When Dad saw the two batches of brownies, he said, "those brownies are going to SK Mulong (the name of his school) tomorrow!" So I packed some of each kind of brownies together with a piece of the victoria sponge (the whole family fasted the day after I baked the sponge so there was still quite a big piece left). Then, I did the same for Abang and Adik, who love taking baked stuff to school to show off to their friends (and share, I suppose, haha).

   So go crazy, if you can, and please the people who love you and you love. If they truly love you, they will eat the brownies whatever they taste like, but they will definitely love you because this recipe really works! 

Brownie Day Part 1: Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies

Ramblings

   Stonesoup is owned by Jules.


   I love Stonesoup. And I love Jules. She has such a simple philosophy of keeping things simple and fuss-free. She has lots and lots of recipes that uses only 5 ingredients, or even less. For someone who cannot, at the moment, afford to spend a lot of money on buying baking ingredients, Jules's recipes are nearly exactly what I need.


   Nearly because so far I haven't had much hand in preparing the main meals in my house. I only make things fit for dessert (unless you eat cake for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper...).


   And nearly because some of her recipes (or at least the ones that I'd like to try) uses whipping cream. I have recently discovered that many supermarkets in Malaysia (or at least the ones that I have been to) such as Tesco and Giant sell whipping cream in the dairy section, but my oh my how expensive they are. 1 litre for arounr RM 18.00 to RM 26.00! Gulp. I'm afraid I'll have to wait 'til I've started working before I can even think of buying them.


   Other than that, I just love reading what Jules has to say on her site. She writes about incredibly interesting stuff. Actually, it's just better if you head over to her site and see for yourself. But I would like to say that I think she's a wonderful person because it seems that she just loves sharing knowledge without asking for much in return. Her free e-Books are delightful. Truly.


   What are you waiting for? Hope over to StoneSoup and have a good time reading the recipes and everything else besides!

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Ramblings on the Recipe

Peanut butter brownies

   Today, I made two kinds of brownies. The first was made using one of Jules's recipes. If you like brownies that are really, really fudgy and squidgy, then this recipe is for you!


   I modified the recipe a bit to suit my taste and also to suit whatever ingredients that I had at the moment. There happened to be a jar of peanut butter which had, I noticed, been sitting all alone on the counter. When I opened it, I discovered that there was about a third of the contents left. The whole thing, including the plastic jar, weighed 150g, which is the amount of peanut butter needed for the recipe. What the heck? I thought. Whatever works, Mayah!


   Jules noted that all-purpose flour would work just as well, but since we had rice flour I decided to follow the recipe on this. I think rice flour gives the extra squidgy-ness to the texture? I don't know. Next time I'll try using all-purpose flour and see what happens.


   I also reduced the amount of sugar because I have, out of a lot of experience, found that most recipes use too much sugar for my liking. I don't know how this affects the overall product, but like I said, whatever works!


   I was also happy because Mum had just bough a new batch of eggs, and man are they large!


   Note: Please check the original recipe for the temperature setting. I often reduce the temperature for my oven because it tends to get too hot. You know your oven. Hoho.

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More Ramblings on the Recipe

This recipe uses Halal ingredients.

It is also gluten and dairy-free.

  

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THE Recipe

Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies

[Click HERE to see the original recipe]

Ingredients: 

130-150g smooth peanut butter

200g brown sugar

2 eggs

50g cocoa powder

75g rice flour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150C. Grease and line baking pan ( I used a 8x8 inch pan) with baking paper (which I forgot to do).

2. Beats eggs. Add sugar. Beat. Add the peanut butter. Beat until well mixed.

3. Fold in flour and cocoa powder. Mix until just incorporated.

4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer or toothpick, if it comes out slightly moist  then it's ready.

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The Ugly but nonetheless Delicious Truth 

   Even after setting my oven to a lower temperature and baking the brownies for exactly 30 minutes, I seemed to have overbaked them (which is something I often do). Or not. 

   The truth is whenever I bake something chocolaty or brown-in-colour, I am often confused because I don't know whether the cake/brownies/cookies are properly and thoroughly cooked because I can't see it by the colour! Which is funny because most of the things I've baked so far involve chocolate or cocoa powder. Oh well. 

   Anyway, even though they were a little around the edges, the brownies were perfectly sticky, squidgy and fudgy. The funny thing is that it was so difficult to pry the brownies from the edge of the pan, and quite as difficult to pry them off the bottom, but once they cleared the pan, they truly cleared the pan! I expected to see a lot of crumbs on the pan but there wasn't much. 

   Verdict: It's a lovely recipe, and my youngest brother loves it. However, I personally would be able to finish only one slice at one seating. Maybe it's because it takes some effort (for me anyway) to chew it. The taste is good enough, but maybe other people would like a more peanut buttery flavour? Next time I'm going to use chunky peanut butter. I wanted to add some crushed peanuts actually, to add to the texture, but we didn't have them. Maybe next time. Sprinkling them on top of the batter would be great. Yeah.

   Thank, Jules! My brothers give your brownies 9 out of 10!