Thanksgiving is in the air! Food Network and the Cooking Channel are filled with recipes for thanksgiving. Even google’s search page had a thanksgiving doodle by Ina Garten (of Food Network’s Barefoot Contessa fame). Its such a wonderful festive time. After Thanksgiving its time for Christmas! I think this is the best time to be in the US. Everybody is in the festive mood and in the mood to EAT! Loads of cook shows, loads of recipes, loads of calories to put on!
Now, V doesn’t eat any other meat than chicken and sometimes, lamb meat (though prefers it only when it is in a kebab form). So turkey for thanksgiving was out of the question. Even though after watching so many thanksgiving shows I was really keen on trying my hand at one. Alas! Acceptance (like my dad said)- thats a key to a successful marriage – and that’s what I did and made my peace with it.
We are having a pot luck on Friday at V’s friends place in Phoenix, and somehow living 4 hours away doesn’t justify not bringing something to eat and since this is going to be like a Thanksgiving feast but with Indian dishes, I thought of taking a dessert that would be somewhat true to Thanksgiving. Now, its not the traditional pumkin pie, or any other kind of pie- because I don’t know how well it will hold off till the next day (but, to tell you the truth, the actual reason is that I’m still not confident with pie crusts- they are still my nemesis-hopefully soon that would change- fingers crossed!). So, I decided to make an Apple coffee cake with crumble topping instead. The recipe is from the Food network site and its Emeril Lagasse’s. Well, what can I say about that guy, I love the guy and his show Emeril Live! Reading the reviews (its got a five-star rating), I am hoping the recipe won’t disappoint.
Note: I did double the crumble topping because I love the crumbs on top! I also took out a few pieces for us for two reasons- one, so that I know what I am serving is good and two, well it smelled so darn good that it was hard to resist!
A light and soft chocolate chiffon loaf cake flavored with orange liqueur. A simple and easy recipe, perfect for any occasion.
Edited to add on April 30, 2018:This recipe for chocolate chiffon cake is super easy and yields a fluffy, soft and moist chocolate cake. Addition of orange liqueur elevates the taste of this chocolate chiffon loaf cake taste even more. Feel free to skip it in case you don’t have any on hand. While the top most picture on the post is the most recent, the one directly above went with the original post that went live on November 18, 2010. I am happy to say that I have learnt a lot about photography in the last few years and I hope I continue to grow and never stop learning.
Original Post:
So, we are back to just the two of us in our house. Said bye to V’s parents on Sunday and came back home to an empty house. After one month of Mom’s cooking lessons, catching up on family gossip, Papa’s watering the garden, and celebrating festivals together, V and I are both alone again in the house. From being so busy to not find time to log on to the net, I now have ample time on hand, and of course, back to having nothing to do in the afternoon. Which means- I am back to blogging :)! And, that too with a chocolate chiffon cake! There couldn’t be a better way to come back!
This cake is very, very soft- like the name suggests its like chiffon- light and soft. The recipe is adapted from Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax. I couldn’t find vanilla essence in my house, which came as a shock to me, because its never happened that I don’t have a bottle of vanilla essence in my pantry. So, instead I used a teaspoon of Godiva chocolate liqueur (like I needed an excuse for doing that!), notching up the cake a little.
⅓ cup unsweetened Dutch- process cocoa powder (in case, dutch process cocoa is not available, switch the baking powder called below for 1 tsp baking soda)
½ cup boiling water
1 tsp instant coffee powder
¾ cup cake flour ( I have used all purpose flour too with good results, though cake flour is ideal)
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
¼ cup vegetable oil (use an oil which is neutral in taste)
2 large egg yolks
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp grand marnier (optional)
4 large egg whites
Pinch cream of tartar
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F. Line a 8 by 4 inch loaf pan with parchment paper.
In a bowl sift the cocoa powder. Add boiling water and instant coffee. Whisk till blended. Add the oil, egg yolks, vanilla and grand marnier to it. Whisk well.
In another bowl, sift the flour with the baking powder and ½ cup of the sugar.
Add the cocoa-water mix to the flour mix and stir till combined. Don't over mix.
In a grease free bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tart until soft peaks.
Gradually add in the sugar and beat whites till stiff peaks.
Fold ¼ of the beaten egg whites to the chocolate mixture, to loosen the batter.
Gently fold in the remaining batter, making sure to not deflate the whites.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan; smooth the top.
Bake until toothpick comes clean when inserted in the centre of the cake, about 50 minutes (start checking after 40-45 minutes, depending on your oven)
Cool cake in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Invert and let cool to room temperature. Enjoy!
Flourless chocolate cake- a gluten free, rich dark chocolate cake. Chocolate lovers will swoon over this dessert.
POST UPDATED on January 16, 2018: A rich dark, chocolate cake recipe that will please all the chocolate lovers in your life. Feel free to omit instant coffee powder or the grand mariner, if you like. While the cake is absolutely decadent with the ganache, I have made it without the ganache and a simple dusting of powdered sugar and it still works out to taste great. The pictures have been updated, although I have kept the above picture from the original post as a reminder for when I started shooting food.
ORIGINAL POST:
Yesterday, it was our 6 month anniversary! (Saying that aloud reminds me of the How I Met Your Mother episode where Robin dumps her boyfriend for celebrating their weekly anniversary- she finds it gay!ouch!). Anywho, and hopefully not sounding gay, yesterday V and I completed 6 months of being together as a married couple. And for us, it was a big deal! Since we had two weddings- 19th March we had our Hindu wedding and 20th March our Sikh one, we get two days to celebrate our anniversary (I’m sure in the future it will be a handy excuse for someone who forgets our anniversary-‘Oh! For me, it will always be on the 20th!’).
Though we wished each other on 19th, I wanted to surprise V with a cake. And since 19th was a Sunday, a day when V is in the house the whole day, I decided to surprise him on the 20th. Because we ate out on 19th, he thought we already celebrated our anniversary and was clueless of the surprise I was cooking up or more like baking up. I am a genius!
So yesterday, I baked the cake in the morning, hid it in the guest room when he came home for lunch. Assembled the cake as soon as he left. Since I had to go for Zumba in the evening, I hid the cake in the fridge, so that when V came back from work he accidentally wouldn’t see the cake. And, luckily, I can trust him to not look inside the fridge when I am not there! When I came back from Zumba, V decided to go to the gym- great!, giving me time to set up surprise- candles, cake and the works.
Now, the cake wasn’t as great as I would have liked it to be. I wanted to like this recipe, I really did want to- its Julia Child’s. But, something just did not sit right with me when it came to the taste. Even though I like my chocolate bitter- the cake was more bitter than I would have liked. Yes, there were some issues with the ingredients- I did not have the required amount of bittersweet chocolate, so substituted a part of it with unsweetened chocolate and upped the sugar amount- but the cake was still quite bitter.
So instead of posting the recipe of the cake I made for our 6 month anniversary, I am posting the recipe for my famous (yes, I count something liked in my family as famous) flourless chocolate cake recipe which has consistently given me great results (the picture at the beginning of this post is of that same famous chocolate cake). The cake has more of a mousse-like texture and is really, really rich. So keep the portions small! The recipe is adapted from Bon Appetit, September ’08 issue.
Preheat oven to 350 F/ 180 C. Butter a 10" diam springform pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment rounds. Butter the parchment. Wrap 3 layers of heavy duty foil around outside of the pan, bringing the foil to the top of the rim. (Like how one does for a cheesecake.)
Combine 1 cup water & sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the instant coffee powder and let simmer for 5 min. Remove from heat. Add the vanilla extract or grand mariner. Add the sea salt.
Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Add the chocolate & whisk until smooth. Whisk sugar syrup into the chocolate, cool slightly.
Add eggs to the chocolate mix, one by one making sure to scrape the edges after each addition. Whisk until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Place cake pan in a large roasting pan. Add enough hot water to the roasting pan to come halfway up sides of cake pan.
Bake until the center no longer moves when the pan is gently shaken, about 50 min. Remove from the water bath. Transfer to a rack. Cool completely in the pan.
For the ganache
Bring whipping cream to simmer in small saucepan over med heat. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate & whisk until smooth. Pour over top of cake still in pan. Gently shake pan to distribute ganache evenly over top of cake. Refrigerate cake in pan until ganache is set, about 2 hrs.
Run a knife around the pan to loosen the cake & release sides.
Cover with chocolate shavings & cocoa dusting.
You can make the cake 2 days ahead. Cover & keep in the fridge.
Note: I did double the crumble topping because I love the crumbs on top! I also took out a few pieces for us for two reasons- one, so that I know what I am serving is good and two, well it smelled so darn good that it was hard to resist!
