Another cake created in our little Polish kitchen. The silicon bundt pan I brought along is only 5 cups, and Rose recommends a 10-cup pan, so I made half a recipe.
That worked out well, since I only had two eggs left after making ladyfingers yesterday.
The ladyfingers also used the last of the vanilla (aromat waniliowy), so I substituted almond (migdałów aromatycznych) – a flavor (or maybe it’s the aromatic-ness) that I find addictive.
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| Glühwein optional |
To give you a feel for the process:
- Cocoa is combined with boiling water.
- Then eggs, water, and extract are combined.
- The dry ingredients are mixed in another bowl, with the butter and cocoa mixture added.
- The egg mixture is added in two steps, then the whole thing is spread into the prepared bundt pan.
- I baked for about 20 minutes at 350 F or 175 C. You may recall that I suspected and Butter Yum’s European friend confirmed that parts of the symbols on my oven dial have been worn off. My best guess (with the aide of an owner’s manual found online, that’s not a perfect match) is that I was using both the upper and lower heating and the fan, a setting that sees to work well for cakes.
Our daughter had this to say about the cake: The almond flavor is better than vanilla would have been, but the cake needs more chocolate. I thought velvet was a perfect word for the name of this cake, very soft and tender.
Unlike my other blog posts, as part of the Heavenly Cake Bakers, I don’t post recipes from this book on the Internet. One of the reasons for this baking group is to encourage readers to purchase the cookbook. That strategy worked on me! After follow the group’s baking adventures for a couple of months, I ordered a copy from Amazon because I wanted join in.
An accountant by trade and a food blogger since 2009, Lois Britton fell in love with Polish cuisine during the years she lived in Poznań, Poland. As the creator of PolishHousewife.com, she loves connecting readers with traditional Polish recipes. Lois has a graduate certificate in Food Writing and Photography from the University of South Florida. She is the author of The Polish Housewife Cookbook, available on Amazon and on her website.
Vicki
You are so plucky! What fun baking in a tiny kitchen and improvising! The almond flavoring sounds like an excellent idea. I used Green & Blacks and Valrhona cocoa powder. It’s pretty strong stuff and the flavor carried through way more than if I had used Ghirardelli.
Lois B
Vicki – it was a fun adventure. I felt a bit like the camp cook on the wagon train trail, but then I’d remember Mendy and his toaster oven. Haha, my apartment oven was much bigger.
I was using Cacao di Pergigotti that I picked up at Williams-Sonoma. I’ll have to look for the cocoa brands you mention.
Baking Sorceress' Apprentice
Your cake looked great. I found mine to be very chocolatey using Green and Blacks dutched cocoa powder and to be moist and velvety. I have had to raise my oven to 355′ instead of 350′ and bake in the middle of the prescribed time, testing for about 200′ and a dry metal tester. That done, the cake turned out great. But it’s been a long time coming, my battles with this stove have almost done me in.
ButterYum
I’m totally addicted to the flavor of almond too!! Great cake – cute in the 5c pan.
🙂
ButterYum
Molly
you know, before I clicked on your post, I thought, she’s going to have something chocolate….yum.