Sorry it's been a while since I've posted a new entry. Let's just say it's been a crazy few weeks and I'll try to be better about the frequency of my posts.
Tonight's recipe comes from my new friend Mario who lives in Portugal. He sent me a beautiful postcard with a recipe for a chocolate cake with carrot.
First of all, anyone who knows me knows that I am huge cake fan, and of all the types of cake there are, I must admit that chocolate tops the list. I enjoy making cakes almost as much as I enjoy eating cake, but every cake I make comes fresh from the box. As you will see, Mario's recipe starts from scratch. So needless to say, I was very excited for my first attempt at this cake!
Here are the ingredients that Mario's recipe calls for:
2-cups of flour.
2-cups of sugar.
6-eggs.
2-shredded carrots.
3-spoons of liquid chocolate.
Baking bread taught me that one should work with all of the dry ingredients before moving on to the wet, so I started by combining the flour and sugar. This wasn't very hard to do given that there is only two dry ingredients.
Next comes the eggs. Now I must admit that I considered not using the egg yolks and instead would double the number of albmen (egg whites) but, if you recall, one of my three rules is that I will not change the recipes I receive, so 6-whole eggs it is!
Please take note of the fancy-ass single handed egg crack! I'm pretty proud of that... It's also the only way I was able to get a photo.
I then moved on to the carrots. I was ready to shred them up when I realized that I didn't have any kind of grater. I wasn't about to go back to the store, so I decided to improvise and used my potato peeler. After peeling the carrots I gave them a fine chopping and below is the result.
*note that there is no photo if the actual peeling. Sorry folks, I didn't have an assistant this week and with only two hands (which were focused on handling the sharp objects) I wasn't able to get a shot. I'm not nearly as talented with single-handed knife handling as I am with egg cracking.
I'm pretty happy with it!
Before adding the chopped carrots to the mix I decided to add the liquid chocolate.
There really is nothing like liquid chocolate I must say. It is the most efficient way short of an IV drip to get the satisfaction that only chocolate can deliver.
My only disappointment is that I could
only use 3 spoons....
So I used a big spoon ;-)
Now we mix it all together!
And get a pretty, though not-so-delicious batter. The color and texture seemed to be spot on, but trust me, it wasn't the tastiest thing I've ever tried. It wasn't awful, just tasted like wet flour.
The consistency was a little thicker than I am used to, but I was able to work with it.
Now the batter is poured into a cake pan and tossed into a balmy 180° oven. Yes friends, that's right, One Hundred-Eighty degrees. Just to have a point of perspective on how low of a temperature that is (as ovens are concerned) my oven turns on at a preset 350°.
I love the waves that form when I pour cake batter.
Yep, 180°. Damn those rules!
And only three hours later, here are the results:
First of all, I am very happy with the result of this recipe. The sugar formed a not overpoweringly sweet crust which was a wonderful surprise and negated the need for any kind of frosting.
The cake itself was moist and very dense. I personally like airy/fluffy cake, but this was a nice change of pace. It was a very well balanced dessert - not overly sweet; just sweet enough to satisfy.
I think it's actually the perfect cake for a partner... which do you think would work better with this?
A) CoffeeB) Ice Cream
Post your vote as a comment!
