Friday 21 September 2012

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

My housemate (also known as my de Facto by a friend of mine) and I are doing this 6 week diet plan so start looking sexxxual to lure in lovers and possible suitors. Week 1 was Vegetarian week! sigh. For anyone who knows me, they all know I'm the biggest carnivore alive. I cannot survive without my meaty goodness. At home in mother Lanka, we have to be vegetarian one day a month when it's a full moon day (a religious mumbo jumbo) and I pretty much starve the whole day, because I hate vegetables and there's nothing for me to eat. I survive on Maggi soup. It's really painful. you just don't understand my love for meat, like seriously. 

Anyway, since I decided it's time for me to start looking sexxxual because it is the prime of my life or something to that effect, I decided to make week 1 vegetarian week. So option A lunch was Dhal and Mushroom curry. Option B lunch was Pumpkin curry. Week 1 went really well actually. I didn't crave meat as much as I thought I would. 

Anyway, I wasn't meant to be writing about my stoopid sexxxual diet. I was meant to write about why and how I made Chocolate Pumpkin Cake. Yeah, so we had extra pumpkin left over from week 1. I never really understood the fascination with pumpkin in desserts. It's a big Halloween and Thanksgiving thing in America but I didn't find it that interesting. The de Facto brought home a super moist almost fudge like dense piece of cake from work and she said to eat it and tell her what the flavour was. I'm normally really good at figuring out flavours and ingredients but I just couldn't figure this one out. When she said it was pumpkin -  MIND = BLOWN. So I decided to make some. I found the original recipe here, but as per usual I changed the ingredients and added my own twist to it. It came out so moist and dense and awesome.I topped it off with some Brandy Butter Icing. But instead of brandy I used whiskey because that's all we had at home. Don't ask me why.

Your Challenge: Pump it up with some Pumpkin stuff




Ready --- Steady --- Cook

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

INGREDIENTS:
100g Plain flour
100g Self raising flour
200g sugar
120g salted butter
50g cocoa powder
2 eggs
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon nutmeg
200g pumpkin  puree
1/2 cup yoghurt or sour cream
2 teaspoons Vanilla
 

METHOD:
1. Pre-heat the oven at 180°C and grease pan (Bundt cake pan or whatever you have).
2. If using fresh pumpkin, chop it and add a little yoghurt or sour cream and blend it till it's a puree.
3. In a bowl combine the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa powder,  cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. In a mixing bowl with electric mixer, cream butter with sugars until light and fluffy.
5. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and then beat in vanilla.
6. Slowly beat in the dry mixture, alternating with the sour cream/yoghurt and pumpkin. Beat until well blended, scraping the sides of the bowl a few times.
7. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan
8. Bake for 25 mins or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted.
9. Cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Invert onto a serving plate to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar or ice with an orange tinted glaze or thin icing.
 

Notes:
You can find the original recipe here. I have halved the ingredients in the original recipe and made this version and even then there was waaay too much batter left. My recipe yields a lot because the 2 eggs make a very fluffy/rich batter.
-Also, I mixed plain flour and self raising flour because I did not have baking soda at home. Whoops.
-I used fresh pumpkin and blended it with the yoghurt to get a puree like substance.
-I used yoghurt because I didn't have Sour Cream at home either. (really didn't think this one through)
-The original recipe says to bake it for 1 hour. I generally do the toothpick trick because every oven is different. So bake till you deem necessary.


Brandy Butter Icing:

Whisk butter, icing sugar and a tablespoon of Brandy together.
To make it feel Pumpkin-ee, mix in orange colouring and serve on the side.  

Note: Orange = Red+Yellow  food colouring. However, mix the yellow in first and add red little by little depending on how dark you want it to be.


Challenge Accepted ???


Enjoy

Tosakanth!

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