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Choco-thrills begin today.
It's an oft-repeated culinary tale: Say the words "Chocolate cake" to a French woman, and she'll respond, "Celebration!" Say them to an American woman and she'll say, "Guilt."

Guilt about food? Really??? 

OK - guilt happens. I have no idea why, but it does. However, there's a likely third response, the one we bakers have: "Adventure!"

Cake baking is an adventure. You can sense this by touring through the cookbook section of any bookstore. There's a maddening number of cake baking publications, from Classic French to South American, with side-trips for every possible diet. 

Take a look inside a selection of these tomes and you'll be bewildered by the range of techniques and ingredients. Beat this and whip that, add this now but not later, double-boil this ingredient and measure that one down to milligrams. 

As cookbook author and science-of-baking guru Shirley O. Corriher says, "This whole area is a mess."

It doesn't have to be that way. One can make an excellent cake with four simple ingredients: flour, butter, sugar and eggs. Ratio these parts equally by weight, use the right technique for prep and assembly, and you'll have a great-tasting if simple cake You can even muddy the water slightly with a fifth ingredient (CHOCOLATE!) and still be baking simply. So what are we waiting for? Let's go! 


The essential simple cake is a "Pound Cake", so-called because each of the four crucial ingredients  weighs one pound. However, unless you've got a huge family and a 10-quart mixer, I don't suggest you make a true pound cake. I never have. For my two-person household an ounce cake is more the norm. Make that a 2-ounce cake: a large egg weighs 2 ounces, and eggs form the basis of most ingredient ratios.

The recipe below is a "6-ounce cake", modified slightly for the desired end product, a dozen cupcakes. Why cupcakes? They're finger food. A moveable celebration.

And now a bit of commentary about the "mess" of cake making technique.

Wheat is one of the reasons for the mess. Bakers who work with glutenous ingredients must use methods that don't over-develop gluten molecules into long, resilient - and therefore tough - strands. Cake shines in the mouth if it's tender and just a little bit chewy. And that's an easier goal to accomplish if your flour doesn't contain gluten.

That worry aside, there's two tricks you'll need to make these cupcakes both delicious and tender: Use Natural, as opposed to Dutch Process, cocoa, and cream the butter carefully.

Dutch Process cocoa contains alkali, which is a leaven. There's nothing wrong with leavens - in fact all baked goods need them - but Perfection All-Purpose flour is already leavened. Dutch Process cocoa will over-leaven the batter, resulting in cratered cupcakes.

Creaming butter is a foundational technique for pound cakes. (As opposed to sponge cakes, which use the same ratio of ingredients but different techniques). This is a method of whipping air into the butter, which if done properly produces a tender crumb.

There's two phases of creaming: beating the butter, then beating the creamed butter and sugar together. Use butter that's not quite room temperature: 60 F works best. Set your mixer on medium-high speed and use a paddle blade for a stand mixer or flat-edge blades for a hand mixer. The first phase takes 2 or three minutes, during which the butter becomes pale and increases in volume. Then add the sugar and do the whole thing over again, until the mixture is again pale and light.

OK - enough details. Time to get out the mixer, some eggs and butter and sugar and cocoa and Perfection All Purpose flour, and whip up some excellent chocolate cupcakes. And don't forget the frosting - in this case, mocha.

 
 

Chocolate Cupcakes with Mocha Frosting

 

Ingredients for the cupcakes:

3/4 cup (107 grams)Luce's Gluten-Free Artisan Bread Perfection All-Purpose flour
3/4 cup (75 grams) Natural cocoa
3 large eggs + 1 egg white
1 1/2 TBLS sour cream
1 1/2 stick (175 g) unsalted butter
1 cup (210 g) granulated sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients for the Frosting:

1 1/3 cup confect sugar
1 TBLS Dutch Process dark cocoa
6 tbls butter room temp
tbls decaf expresso
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt

 

Procedure for the cupcakes:

1) Preheat oven to 325. Line a 12-cup cupcake tray with paper liners. Place an oven rack in the center slot. 

2) Put flour and cocoa into a medium bowl and whisk to combine.


3) Put butter into a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Cream the butter on medium speed until it is white and fluffy. Add the sugar, and cream again until the mixture returns to fluffiness. Turn the mixer to medium-low and add the vanilla then mix until incorporated. Add the eggs and egg white, one at a time, mixing just until each egg is incorporated. Add the sour cream and mix until just incorporated. 

3) Sprinkle 1/2 the flour mixture over the creamed butter and gently fold in. When full incorporated, add the other 1/2 of flour mixture and fold it in too.

4) Using a small soup ladle, fill each cupcake paper to within about 1/2 inch of the top. Dough will be slightly stiff - you may need to nudge the dough from the ladle with a finger tip.

5) Place cupcakes into oven immediately. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the trays 90 degrees. Bake another 10 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs attached. 

6) Remove cupcakes to a wire rack and allow to cool 5 minutes before removing the cupcakes in their paper from the metal tray. Let cupcakes cool completely before removing paper and frosting them.

To make frosting:

1) In a medium bowl, mix sugar, cocoa and salt and whisk to blend.

2) Place butter into a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment on the stand mixer or round wire beaters on the hand mixer, cream the butter on medium speed.

3) With mixer running on low speed, add sugar/cocoa/salt blend. Beat until frosting comes together. Add vanilla and espresso. Increase mixer speed to high and whip ingredients until they become smooth and fluffy.

4) Spread on cupcakes with a frosting knife or load frosting into a pastry bag and decorate the cupcakes.

 

Eat. Celebrate. Never feel guilt.

Copyright © 2018 GF Creations LLC d.b.a. Luce's 9 Grains, All rights reserved.
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