Monday, October 30, 2006

Wholemeal Chocolate Almond Coffee Cake

an entire wholemeal chocolate almond coffee cake

Yesterday, I succumbed to my urge...

...and baked - even though I really should have been hard at work meeting my deadlines. Well I really couldn't help it.

You see, sometimes when I face a mind block and just simply cannot concentrate, I find that it helps if I rest my mind and do something else.

Hmmm.. okay or maybe that's just a lame excuse for me to bake. haha.

It's not my fault! My hands were simply itching to bake something yum. In fact, I had a recipe that I've been dying to use - just that I haven't got the time of late.

So I finally got down to it and baked that cake you see above and I loved the result. My family liked it and so did JF. And here's a virtual slice for you my dear reader:

wholemeal chocolate almond coffee cake

This cake is rather different from the ones I usually bake. Due to the grounded almonds, the cake had a loose texture which made it crumbly and really nutty. Perfect for nut-lovers. The fact that it was combined with wholemeal plain flour just made it even yummy. As a wheat/multigrain/wholemeal lover, I have to say that this cake really made my day. The nutty undertones of the wholemeal totally melded with the almonds and chocolate.

I gotta admit that I ate quite a bit of the cake! Perhaps it's because of the fact that it's not as sinful. But you know what; despite it being quite healthy, it really tasted good. The dark chocolate did the trick.

The original recipe called for hazelnuts but I had none at hand so I used almonds instead. To make it more chocolatey, I added in some cocoa powder. As usual, I cut down the sugar. Ended up using only 180g of sugar - and that worked out fine for me because I don't like my chocolate cake too sweet because it would overpower the chocolate taste.

I love this recipe and I think it's a great recipe to try out if you want to play around with your ingredients. This is a recipe from Nigel Slater but I can't remember which blog I got it from. Well anyhow, I'm glad I copied it into my computer!

Oh, before I go, here's an extra tip the recipe includes: you can add orange zest or finely chopped fruit like dried apricots or prunes. Also, walnuts and almonds work fine, if you don't have hazelnuts!

Man, I should make another one with hazelnuts. Chocolate and hazelnuts - a divine combination. Just think Nutella! Heh... you know what, I think I will add some nutella in the cake batter the next time I bake it. Nothing goes wrong with Nutella, trust me :)

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Wholemeal Chocolate, Hazelnut & Coffee cake
an adapted recipe from Nigel Slater's Appetite - p.438.

250g butter (1 block)
125g soft brown sugar
125g white or raw sugar (feel free to play with these sugar amounts)
4 large eggs
3-4 tablespoons strong espresso coffee
250g wholemeal plain flour
2 heaped teaspoons baking powder
200g skinned hazelnuts, coarsely ground (I used almonds)
250g good, dark chocolate - coarsely chopped (it should look like gravel)

23cm springform cake tin or a normal cake tin.

Method:

Line the tin with greaseproof paper and set the oven to 180C.

Cream the butter and sugars until fluffy and pale.

Add in eggs one at a time, beating lightly between each addition. Don't worry if the mixture curdles. Stir in the coffee.

Add the flour and baking powder and fold them in. Now fold in most of the hazelnuts and chopped chocolate, keeping a little back for the top of the cake. The mixture should be quite firm.

Spoon the batter into the lined tin and smooth the top. Scatter over the remaining hazelnuts and nuts

Bake for about 1h 20 minutes or until the cake is springy. Test it with a skewer - it should come out clean.

Let cool for 30 minutes before cutting. This cake is best served warm.

17 comments:

  1. Hello, just wanted to say that you have a great blog. You have some wonderful cooking and recipes here. :)

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  2. Hi!I've been reading your blog for a while, not daring to post any comments... But it's wonderful! I wonder how you manage to meet your deadlines, do sport and bake... Your photos are always superb too but is it my browser or something else? Because I can't see the ones you posted today...

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  3. what happen to some of your pic ? can't see except the msg ...photobucket.com bandwidth exceeded..
    btw..first time here n u have a nice blog...

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  4. robyn: thanks! am glad you enjoy my blog... do try out some recipes if you can ... :)

    vanessa: haha time management I guess. hmmm or maybe because I sleep very little! oh don't worry about the photos. it's not your computer. i've fixed it.

    alex: yea... photobucket apparently has a limit on the amount of photos you post each month and i think i exceeded it. it's okay, the pictures are all up now. i am back to using Hello again.

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  5. hi
    cheryl
    what a great looking cake
    its great you love to bake me too but i worry about the sugar sometimes.
    great work...

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  6. I'm gonna try out some recipes for sure. Don't know to convert measurements for some of them, but that's okay. There's so much I want to bake, it's making my head spin!

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  7. This looks heavenly. Save a piece for me.

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  8. i feel guilty when you say you shouldn't be baking cuz of all the deadlines.

    deadlines or not, i have the urge to bake practically everyday! haha.

    i never tried a cake with wholemeal flour, this will be on my to-do list. :)

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  9. Hello there, may I know what brand of dark chocolate did you use?

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  10. can u have this in ur next baking sale? i dun have an oven but realli want to try this cake very much!

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  11. hey Cheryl,

    i found the site this recipe was posted on- http://esurientes.blogspot.com/2005/08/shf-coffee-chocolate-hazelnutbrilliant.html It looks SO good! I've got some wholemeal plain flour on hand too. Wholemeal strawberry pancakes are yum and healthy too, totally kick starts your day!

    Is wholemeal flour easy to find in Singapore though? From what i've seen, a lot of items are pretty hard to find and expensive if you manage to, even in Phoot Huat. Where do you get your stuff?

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  12. hihi cheryl~! i love reading ur blog=) the food photos u post always make me drool. i luv eating cakes but since reading ur blog i had the urge to learn baking too!

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  13. hi
    cheryl
    i too love baking just like you and itch to do it sometimes and when its a bit healthy i prefer it to the others.
    your recipe seems to be very good but i just may not find certain ingredients easily can i use white ground sugar instead of brown sugar.

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  14. Mahek: thanks! yea the amounts of sugar some recipes call for is really alot...

    Robyn: try this site: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/gram_calc.htm

    it's pretty useful. i use it when i need to convert measurements. :)

    Precious Moments: okay i will! :p but you would have to travel all the way to the east. by then, it'll have all disappeared. haha.

    maya: haha yea i bake to relieve stress sometimes as well. do try baking this, i think you'd like it...

    Karen: I used the one at Carrefour. Their dessert dark chocolate. It's about 52% dark. you can get it at the chocolate section.

    cruel-intentions: you want to order it from me? can, but you'd have to wait till after my exams!

    thecoffeesnob: hey, thanks! yea wholemeal plain flour is not that easy to find. i bought mine from the Origins Healthfood section at one of the NTUC outlets. Mine was organic wholemeal plain flour. I think you can try jason's market place too. but ya, it tends to be expensive!

    housefly: i'm glad you like my blog. keep on baking! try out this recipe too why don't you...

    Mahek: I'm sure any sugar would do. ya! i like the healthier recipes better too... this one seems pretty healthy. try it!

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  15. Wow, the cake looks good. I am always on a lookout for healthy dessert. Will try to bake it one day :)

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  16. I baked this cake over the weekend, using oats-grind flour instead of wholemeal flour. And used only 125g brown sugar. The cake turned out really good and yummie. Everyone loves it. Thank you for sharing!!

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  17. hey e great baker :)
    guess wat, i've juz finished tryin 2 bake tis cake n it turned out nt as great as hw ur pic looked...haahaa
    can i noe did u ADD in cocao powder of REPLACE sme of the flour wif cocao? hw much cocao did u place in? n is tt chocolate oozing out fr the middle of the cake? hw 2 get tt result?
    any advice in keepin cakes w/o 'spoilin' it? hw long can they normally b kept?
    tanks :)

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