Cake!

[jessre]

(Apologies if there is a thread for cake and I just didn't find it.)

Yash and I adapted this recipe for Gen. We also halved it, since there were only two of us to eat a whole cake, and the thought of a two-layer cake was a bit overwhelming. Our measurements were a bit odd, though - I'll add the unhalved recipe below.

The recipe as we made it:
3/4 cups flour
1/4 (and 1/8) cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoons baking powder
generous 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup hot water
2 teaspoons instant coffee
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs

For frosting:
1/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup cream cheese
generous 1/8 cup goat cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups icing sugar

For crumble:
1 slice white bread
1/3 cup oats
generous dash cinnamon
2 tablespoons brown sugar
teaspoon or two butter

For decoration:
3-4 fresh figs
2 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons apricot jam

Cake:

• Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Sift together.
• Combine hot water and coffee granules. Beat until granules are dissolved. From this, measure out approximately 1/6 cup (sorry) and combine with yogurt and vanilla in a small bowl.
• In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time.
• Alternate adding flour mixture and yogurt mixture, beginning and ending with flour, and beating well. (Add 1/3 flour mixture, 1/2 yogurt mixutre, 1/3 flour, 1/2 yogurt, 1/3 flour to butter mixture.)
• Pour cake batter into a greased and floured 9-inch round cake pan. (Or a pie pan does well, if you don't have a cake pan.) The batter will be thick.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes, or until knife comes out clean.

Frosting:

• ***Confession time: there isn't supposed to be that much icing sugar; I forgot to halve it. If you like really sweet icing, use the 2 cups. If you don't, reduce icing sugar to 1 cup, maybe 1 and a half. I ended up adding in extra cream and goat cheese. The result tasted good, but we had a small bowlful of extra icing afterward.)***
• Beat together butter, cream cheese, and goat cheese. Add vanilla and icing sugar and beat well.

Crumble:

• Toast the bread.
• Puree toast and oats together until the consistency is mostly flour-like.
• Add cinnamon, sugar, and butter and puree also.
• Pour mixture onto tray or square cake pan and bake at 350 5-10 minutes, or until lightly browned

Decorations:

• Wash the figs and slice them (see photo). Eat the extra pieces.
• Grill figs in frying pan until slightly brown and a little firmer than they were raw
• In a small bowl, combine honey and jam. Strain so there are no lumps.
• ***Confession time: we actually used 2 tbsp each honey and jam, and had enough left over for another cake, easily.***

Assembling the cake:
Sprinkle crumble on cake plate in a circle. This is the base layer. There will be extra crumble. Put the cake on the crumble. Ice sides and top of cake with frosting. Be as generous as you like with the icing; there will be extra. Decorate with figs. Glaze the figs with the honey-jam mixture. Sprinkle with remaining crumble, if you like.
***Confession time: we intended to use halved grapes as well, but forgot to buy them***
***Confession time: we tried to grate orange zest onto the cake, but the orange would not grate. Note to self: use a navel orange next time, not a mandarin.***



Ingredients from The Thief in this cake:
oats
yogurt
honey
figs
goat's cheese [***Confession time: we intended to use goat's milk but none of the local stores carried it. So we improvised.***]
cream cheese
coffee
bread
apricots [in jam form]

You could also add, as we intended to, oranges and grapes.



For a two layer cake (because like ogres, Gen has layers)
Cake:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup yogurt
• 1/3 cup hot water
• 4 tsp instant coffee
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
• 3 eggs

Frosting:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup cream cheese
• 1/4 cup goat cheese (maybe 1/3 cup)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups icing sugar

Crumble:

• 2 slices white bread
• 2/3 cup oats
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2+ tsp butter

Decoration:

• figs
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp apricot jam

Things to try next time:

• Yash wanted a stronger coffee flavour. Next time we plan to double the amount of instant coffee granules used.
• Try dissolving the instant coffee into scalded goat milk instead of hot water.
• Orange zest! I'll buy a navel orange next time. It might be worth cutting thin strips of the rind to add to the cake batter.
• Incorporate the crumble with the cake: sprinkle unbaked crumble on top of unbaked cake batter and swirl with knife or toothpick. (Save some crumble for decorating the top.)
• For a sacher torte effect on a double-layer cake, double the apricot jam-honey mixture and spread on the bottom cake layer before icing with cream cheese mixture.

It was delicious, by the way.

How are your Thief cakes going?