Let Them Eat Cake

We had friends over for dinner this past weekend and it provided the perfect opportunity to try out a coconut flour cake recipe from Tropical Traditions that I've had my eye on. 

Coconut Flour Chocolate Cake

• 1 cup butter - softened
• 1 2/3 cups sugar (white or brown, I used brown)
• 10 eggs (at room temperature)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups coconut flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups whole milk or half n' half (I used whole milk)
• Coconut oil

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9 inch or 8 inch layer pans with coconut oil and dust with cocoa powder.

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and sugar, and beat together for about 2 minutes. Add eggs in one at a time and beat high speed for about 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla while beating the eggs and butter mixture. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients together and add alternately with the milk to the butter mixture. Beat batter for about five minutes on high speed. Spoon batter into the two prepared cake pans and smoothen out tops.

Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center of cake comes out clean. Place pans on wire rack and cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans. Cool cakes completely before frosting. Use your favorite frosting to frost the cake.

Cupcakes: Make recipe as directed but spoon batter into muffin cups and bake for about 26-30 minutes. Frost after cupcakes have cooled completely. Makes about 24 cupcakes.

Cooling cakes - they barely fit in the 8 inch rounds!

Now I don't know about you, but I'm usually a cake mix kind of girl, ok, I'm always a cake mix kind of girl.  Before going gluten free I always used a mix, even if I enhanced it with things like pudding and extra eggs, so baking an entire cake from scratch was a whole new experience for me!  Miraculously, everything seemed to go as it was supposed to and the cakes looked and smelled awesome coming out of the oven.  It was only when I went to frost them that things took a turn for the worst.

To frost the cake I wanted to use a chocolate cream cheese cake filling recipe that our family has used for years and years.  Delicious and simple.  Over the holidays we substituted real whipping cream for the called for Cool Whip and the results were spectaular, not to mention made with real ingredients!

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake Filling

• 3-4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 8 ounces Cool Whip (use real whipping cream, WAY better!)
• 1 cup chocolate chips (use semi-sweet, otherwise it can be too sweet)

Melt chocolate chips carefully in the microwave.  Do not overheat!!

Add room-temp cream cheese and beat well.

Add vanilla and Cool Whip, beat together

Use as filling between layers of a chocolate cake.  Or if you're like me and use a full two cups of heavy whipping cream prior to whipping it up, use it to frost the whole stinkin' cake!  Just store it in the fridge, duh.

So I whipped up my 2 cups of whipping cream with a little powdered sugar and vanilla, perfect.  I had my cream cheese softened and ready for action.  I went to my cupboard and had exactly one cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips left in the bag.  Everything was set for quick and easy cake assembly.  Then I microwaved the chocolate chips.  Now in the recipe when it says "Do not overheat!!"  it means it!  In no time flat I scorched my cup of chocolate chips.  Melted chocolate with grainy black burnt pieces mixed throughout.  Disaster.  But all was not lost - I still had some milk chocolate chips.  I quickly put those in my other 1 cup glass measuring cup and microwaved them on super low power in short time increments.  Was the frosting saved?  No, not even close.  Somehow I ruined those as well.  They didn't even melt, like at all, just turned into a rock hard mass in the middle of the measuring cup.  Uber-disaster.  Note to self, do not heat chocolate in glass, it gets too hot.  And remember that the brand new microwave cooks WAY hotter than the old one!  And this was supposed to be the easy part!  People were coming over, my whipping cream was just sitting on the counter waiting and waiting, and I had nothing but burned chocolate.  Epic fail.  There might have been tears. 

Luckily Joey stepped in and saved the day, running to the store to buy me more semi-sweet chips, which I melted in a stoneware bowl on a low setting.  Somehow the frosting came together perfectly despite my worry that the whipped cream had sat too long and crisis was averted!  It looked good, it tasted good, and I have to admit I was quite pleased with myself.  It is a little drier than cake mix cakes, but I think all homemade cakes are, and quite frankly I wouldn't have guessed it was gluten free and made with coconut flour except for the fact that I made it.  Would definitely make again!

Epilogue: I've been eating large slabs of cake for 4 days now.  It is still delicious, and very filling!  I don't feel guilty - all those eggs make it healthy, right?!