Monday, September 23, 2013

Chocolate Avocado Cake

I wrote a really long blog post last week, that I did not end up posting, about making a sourdough culture. To say I was excited would be an understatement. The post was full of exclamation marks and long passages of me gushing about how easy it is to make a sourdough starter at home. I talked to all my friends about my sourdough starter. I talked to all the chefs at work about my sourdough starter. At events I would find a way to casually weave the topic into conversation (which can be hard if you’re standing around talking to a group of girls. Nothing is a subtle as "Hey I like your dress, you know what else I like? Sourdough starters.)
All this is to say; when the time came to make my bread I was pretty excited. I had just worked eight days in a row, and was exhausted, but instead of getting into bed and watching episodes of 'Breaking Bad' back to back I carefully weighed out my ingredients and set about making my first loaf. Everything looked great. The starter was bubbling nicely and had a pretty pungent smell. I impatiently waited for my bread to rise.........it never did. Something, somewhere along the way went wrong and my sourdough just wasn't meant to be. I was pretty crushed and banned everyone from using the words 'yeast', 'starter', or even just talking about bread.

So this week I've started my second stater with a different method. I'll keep you updated on how it comes along, and if it works out I'll share the recipe with you.

Some other exciting new is that this week I officially started working at 'Little Cupcakes' as their flavour designer. It’s a really fun job, where I get to go in once a week, come up with a new flavour of cupcake, and test it out in the shop to see how well it sells. I had such a fun time baking my first batch of Banoffee Pie cupcakes, which were pretty delicious.

Another fun thing that happened this week was one of my best friends birthdays. I’m pretty keen on birthdays because it a great excuse to bake a cake (not that you need an excuse of course.) I wanted to make something a little fun and different that reflected her personality, so I tried out an avocado chocolate cake recipe that I've been meaning to try for ages. It was delicious, and didn't taste strange at all. Don't be put off by the quirkiness of it, it’s actually pretty great. The recipe came from one of my favourite cook books called 'Sweet Tooth' by Lily Vanilli.

Chocolate Avocado Cake
You will need:
  • 200g dark chocolate
  • 1tsp of instant coffee
  • 200g plain flour (sifted)
  • 2tsp of baking soda (bicarb soda)
  • Pinch of salt
  • 200g unsalted butter
  • 200g brown sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 100ml of natural yoghurt.
For the frosting:

  • 1 ripe avocado
  • 3/4 tbs of lemon juice
  • 250g icing sugar (sifted)

Method:
  • Melt the chocolate and coffee together over a double boiler.
  • Cream together the butter and sugar for at least five minutes or until pale white.
  • Whisk together the eggs.
  • Slowly add the eggs, stopping to scrape down the sides of the mixer.
  • Combine baking soda, flour and salt.
  • Fold in half the flour mix, the yoghurt, and then the remaining flour mix.
  • Slowly fold in the melted chocolate mix (once it has cooled)
  • Divide the batter between two cake tins that have been lined with baking paper.
  • Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
  • To make the frosting blend the avocado with the lemon juice in a bar mix or blender.
  • Add the icing sugar and blend until there are no lumps.
  • Once the cake has cooked down you can add a layer of frosting between the two cakes and one on top of the cake.
  • Decorate it with little statues of birds.....or whatever you can find that’s fun.



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