Another chocolate cake

I am on a quest for a naturally sweetened whole wheat chocolate layer cake. The ones I have tried before have been on the heavy and dry side.

This one, while not the fluffy delight a cake mix always turns out, was moist, rich, chocolatey, and smooth. Still heavy and dense, but not badly so. It reminded me of a chocolate mousse cake. I would make it again… but I would still like to find a fluffy one! I know, I need to get some sucanat and give that a try… and maybe see if I could find whole wheat pastry flour — ultra grain is as close as we can get at our local stores.

I made it with this swiss meringue buttercream, sweetened with maple syrup and turbinado sugar, except I used butter instead of shortening. Absolutely fantastic. The only problem was there wasn’t quite enough — I think one and a half recipes would do better next time.

I was disappointed with the chocolate ice cream — sometimes I am sensitive to a different taste in the raw milk and cream we get — not quite sure how to describe it other than “grassy” or “redolent of barnyard.” Mark couldn’t tell — but he didn’t think it was chocolatey enough.

Rescue this recipe

Okay, so I’m making meringue-based buttercream. I’ve made the Swiss kind a few times before and it’s turned out beautifully. I did a little research and found two buttercream recipes made with natural sweeteners. One, which makes about a fifth of the amount my recipe makes (based on the number of egg whites required), called for 4.5 T of maple syrup and 1/4 c of coconut sugar. I multiplied by five and got 22.5 T, equivalent to 1 1/2 c, and 1 1/4 c of the coconut sugar. I added those together (since I have no coconut sugar) and got just shy of 3 c. Since the original recipe asks for 4 c of sugar, I decided to go for 3 c of natural sweetener. I used 2 c maple syrup and 1 c honey.

First of all, I should have measured my mixer bowl. It’s not big enough for this big recipe. (I’ve made half before, and 2/3 before, but never the whole amount.) The egg whites and sweeteners heated up beautifully over a pot of boiling water, and were starting to whip beautifully in the mixer, but while I was doing something else they rose up exuberantly and spilled over.

I divided the mixture in half and continued with one half. I started to add the cool but soft butter, a cube at a time. The stuff deflated, and even after about a stick or two of butter (the whole recipe calls for ten, so this was nearly half the allotted amount for half the recipe) it remained stubbornly soupy and unemulsified, even after chilling.

So… is there anything I can make with 2 c egg whites, 2 c maple syrup, 1 c honey, and 1/2 – 1 c butter?

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Edited to add:

I thought the problem may have been either that I didn’t whip the whites and sweeteners long enough — didn’t quite get to stiff peaks — or else that the honey was too thick / heavy / viscose (a note on one of the recipes said not to use it for that reason — which I noticed after using it).

But in a terrifying leap of faith, I decided to a) try a trick I saw after googling “save a failed buttercream,” which was to heat up 1/4 of the mixture and stream it back in, and then b) keep adding the butter. It worked.

Meanwhile I’d already set out more frozen egg whites to try again with a different recipe, the one with maple and coconut sugar (I used turbinado), so I went ahead and made that, too.

Altogether, 3 quarts from the first recipe, with a yummy rich maple flavor, and maybe 2/3 quart of the second recipe, with a lighter flavor and color. So I’m set for icing for three more cakes after this weekend’s. Good thing it freezes!

Molasses pancakes

This is just a serendipitous variation on the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook pancake recipe, provoked inspired by our current lack of honey (which I usually use to sweeten pancake batter).

In a large bowl, whisk together the following:

2 c whole wheat flour
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t cinnamon
1/8 t ground cloves
1/8 t ginger

In another bowl, whisk together the following:

2 c buttermilk
2 eggs
4 T melted butter
1 T molasses

Combine wet and dry ingredients, stirring just until well-combined.

Amy says they’re even good plain, but I like them best with butter and maple syrup.

Bread

I have been making this bread recipe for many months now — over a year? — and often it turns out just fine. But lately it seems every time it is doing this weird thing where the bottom part is very nice but the top part falls apart.

Is it rising too much before going in the oven? Not enough? Some other issue?

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Apparently, crumbly bread with a coarse grain and holes has likely risen too long and in too warm a place. Other issues that cause crumbliness are not kneading enough, not mixing enough, or having too much flour.

Cake

I was in the mood for cake the other day. And I’ve had this swiss meringue buttercream article bookmarked for a long while. So this weekend they came together.

First of all, icing. The stuff on the back of the powdered sugar box is NOT buttercream, despite its claim to the contrary — it’s nothing like real bakery icing. Failing that, and not having good substitutes for the otherwise lovely but shortening-based “fluffy white icing,” and Mark having no qualms against icing-in-a-can, I haven’t made icing in years. (Except the boiled icing for texas sheet cake that we make on birthdays.) The swiss meringue buttercream article inspired me to try again to make the real thing.

But what cake to put it on? As usual, I hemmed and hawed and researched too much — this buttercream, or try to find a honey- or maple-sweetened version — likewise, a regular cake, or one with healthier sweeteners — would texas sheet cake really be that bad in layers — and on and on. Here are some other buttercreams I considered — once I chose this maple-sweetened, butterless cake, I decided to go with the original swiss meringue despite the sugar.

First, the cake.

I used white whole wheat flour, substituted whole milk for the coconut milk, used coconut oil, and increased everything by 1 1/2 thinking that way I would have enough for two round layers. The store Mark went to did not have any bittersweet chocolate, so he got two giant Special Dark bars. When I make the cake again, I’ll try to get the right chocolate, and I’ll be sure to have the maple syrup and milk at room temperature — right out of the fridge they nearly solidified the coconut oil.

The cake is delicious. Rich, chocolaty. But very dense, and could be more moist. To me it seems like some hybrid between pound cake and flourless / mousse cake. Good — but maybe not the best choice for a layer cake with fluffy frosting. Too sweet to my taste, but that may be because of the Special Dark instead of bittersweet.

And now, the icing.

I divided the recipe by four, thinking since I wasn’t doing any fancy piping or other decoration I would have plenty. The egg white and sugar heating went beautifully, as did beating it until thick, glossy, and cool. Adding the butter went smoothly too, although it was no longer thick. Then it curdled a bit when I added the vanilla. I kept chilling it and trying again. Then, like magic, very suddenly, it simultaneously got very thick, slowing the mixer, and beautifully smooth instead of grainy.

Even though it’s not as cloyingly sweet as powdered sugar “buttercream,” this icing is still too sweet to my taste. I wonder if it would work with less sugar, or if the amount of sugar affects the way the meringue sets up.

I sliced the surprisingly tall layers in half to make four layers (maybe one recipe would have been enough), and barely had enough icing to cover them all. It would have been a fine amount for a normal layer cake. I think applying the frosting might have been the hardest part of the whole endeavor — what a terrible job I did.

Still — cake! (And real icing!)

Unusual grilling

A few days ago, Mark grilled the cornbread in a cake pan. It was so tender.

Tonight, I roasted carrots and beets in a foil “pan,” and fried bacon, kale, and peas in an iron skillet — both on the grill.

The beets, kale, and peas were from our garden. These peas produced for so long… not a lot at any one time, but some of the plants are still making new pods. I’ll plant more next year for sure.

I should have cut the beets and carrots smaller — the smallest pieces cooked through but the largest were still crispy in the middle.

Two interesting dinners

Meatballs in creamy parmesan sauce (Last night)

1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1/4 c milk
1 slice bread
Basil, salt, pepper

6 T butter
1 c milk
1/4 flour
1/2 c parmesan
Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Cooked pasta

Mix the first five ingredients. I used fresh basil from the garden — a good handful of leaves. I guess maybe a teaspoon or half a teaspoon dried basil would work. Salt and pepper to taste. Form into small balls — about an inch.

Cook in butter at medium heat until cooked through. Whisk remaining sauce ingredients and stir in. Cook a few minutes more until thickened and bubbly.

Serve over pasta.

My amounts are approximate; I used too much flour and tried to correct that here.

Bacon, Eggs, and Greens Salad (Tonight)

Five hardboiled eggs
Five strips of bacon
The rest of the head of broccoli, cut up small
Some carrot thinnings
Some peas from the garden
A lot of salad greens
Vinaigrette

Christening

I tried the mixer today. Oiled it, cleaned it as best I could in a short time, and made cookies.

I used this recipe, except I subbed butter for the shortening and, since I didn’t have enough maple syrup, used both maple syrup and honey.

Creaming the butter was fine — even got the bowl rotating after a while.

Adding the egg was not so fine. A paste of butter about an eighth of an inch thick got spread on the side of the bowl, and it seemed to take forever of scraping down and feeding it to the beaters before it got incorporated. Wish I’d thought to take a picture of this part. I gave up before forever, and went ahead with the other ingredients.

I wasn’t sure about the flour, because the dough already looked a little dry and stiff — wanted to make sure I gave the mixer enough power so I used a higher speed, and of course got dusted a little. One small section of the bowl had some unincorporated flour, probably because the mass of dough was just before that section and the mixer threw the bowl around after getting through the dough. No smells or obvious struggling, so I suppose it was okay. Once everything was incorporated, the beaters spread the dough thickly on the sides of the bowl. And again I forgot to take a picture before scraping it down.

I added in the nuts by hand.

I wasn’t expecting the cookies to stay spherical; they’re more like shortbread than like your typical oatmeal cookie. Tasty, though. They’d be good with coconut, and / or cocoa.

The mixer needs some more serious cleaning to remove ancient cooking grease in the vents and wrinkles and such. And it would be nice to eventually have the paint touched up — especially on the turntable, which is all rusted in and around the ring that holds the bowl.

Sunbeam Mixmaster 7B

Found this vintage ’40s mixer at a secondhand store for $20; can’t wait to try it.

Bowties

2 c flour
3 eggs
a little whole wheat flour

Mix and knead smooth. Put through the pasta machine ending at setting 4. Place the piece on a smooth kitchen towel and cut into strips and then rectangles. Pinch each rectangle in the middle; the cross-section would look like a “W.” Lay the bowties on the towel to dry a bit, and repeat until all the dough has been used.

Two nice things about using the towel — the dough doesn’t stick to the table, and you can gather up all the pasta in the towel and pour it in the pot all at once.

Mine didn’t sit to dry very long, so they took about four minutes to cook in boiling salted water.

Served with previously frozen homemade sauce.

Usually I saute a little garlic and / or onion in some olive oil, brown a pound of ground beef, then add 2 cans of tomatoes, 2 of tomato sauce, and 2 of tomato paste plus half a can of water for each can. Simmer all day. I find that dried basil and oregano lose their flavor after freezing, so I don’t bother putting any in the stock pot. I add some each time I heat up a portion from the freezer.

You can, alternatively, make meatballs with the raw beef mixed with egg and breadcrumbs and a little milk, and simmer them in the sauce. The advantage of meatballs is, meatballs! The disadvantage is we tend to eat all the meatballs the first night, and the rest of the sauce has that meaty flavor but no actual meat in it. That’s what we had on these bowties tonight.