Happee Monkee

Today felt like Christmas. Not because Santa came by 11 months too soon but remember as a kid you would jump out of bed before anyone else did on Christmas morning? That feeling.

Let me start from the beginning. G’s dad has a fantastic garden filled with fruit and vegetable plants. We grow our own lemons, tomatoes, passion fruit, potatoes, green apples and blood plums. We would like to grow more like bok choy, lettuce and so forth but till then, our buckets are happily filled. There is nothing cooler than harvesting your own produce.

It’s late summer here in Melbourne and the season for blood plums. When G’s dad shook the plum tree, it was like jackpot. BING, Bing, bing, bing! Blood plums were aaalllll over the garden floor. And in that instant, my head went ZING, Zing, zing, zing!

We threw out the bad ones and stewed the softer, riper plums. The aroma… ohmygawd… the smell of hot plums stewing is probably one of the most divine perfumes in the world. I can stand over the stove stirring these rich, garnet plums for hours; heady from inhaling the fragrance. I kid you not, it is the best thing to do in an Australian summer.

With that much plums to get down and dirty with, I started devising ways to use it. Would it be possible to re-create a black forest cake by using stewed plums, I asked?

I found a recipe in Sarah Magid’s ‘Organic & Chic‘ {I read every single delicious page of that book, studying all the recipes and photographs within 3 days} and found an egg-less, butter-less, mixer-less chocolate cake. Yes, you heard me. No eggs, no butter, no hand mixer chocolate cake.

My reaction? It cannot be true.

So I decided put it to the test. This is the recipe:

*Easiest Chocolate Cake (and it is) makes one 8″ or 9″ cake or 24 cupcakes

• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups caster sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup canola oil
• 2 tsp white vinegar
• 2 cups cold water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C or 350°F. Grease your cake pan.
2. In a large bowl, sift dry ingredients together.
3. Mix vanilla extract, oil, vinegar and cold water in a bowl.
4. Slowly stir in wet ingredients into flour mixture. It will be fairly watery. Be careful not to overmix.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 40 – 50 minutes or until skewer comes out dry; 25 – 30 minutes for cupcakes.
6. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes; invert in wire rack.

*Please note that because it is called Organic and Chic, all the ingredients are suppose to be organic but I’ve replaced with ordinary un-organic stuff.

Voila! There you have it. A simply, simple, over easy, moist and soft chocolate cake.

Today, my-personal-Christmas-Day, I woke up bright and early to get ready to ice the chocolate cake. I made the cake the previous day and let it cool overnight. The next thing I did, which I have never done before in my life, is to make buttercream.

This, my friends, is truly, a historical moment. My. first. step. into. cake. decorating. *Inhales*

Of course with the success of Sarah’s easy chocolate cake, I decided to once again use The Book. This time it’s the Vanilla Whipped Buttercream.

Ingredients:

• 220g unsalted butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup full cream milk
• ¼ plain flour
• 1 ½ tbsp vanilla extract

Method:

• Cream butter on medium speed for about 30 seconds.
• Add sugar and beat on high for about 5 – 7 minutes, until light and fluffy.
• In a small saucepan, combine a quarter of the milk with flour and vanilla extract. Whisk until no lumps.
• Over medium heat, slowly add the remaining milk, whisk constantly.
• Cook mixture until comes to low boil and then reduce heat to low and whisk until mixture thickens.
• Remove from heat. Keep stirring and leave to cool to room temperature. (Sarah cautions: After you have removed the pan from the heat, the mixture will continue to cook for a minute or two on its own. If you have overheat it and get small lumps, try to whisk it vigorously to get them out or pass the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve). [Sarah says: If necessary, place the pan over a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process and allow the mixture to cool.]
• With mixer on low speed, pour mixture into the butter.
• Increase speed to medium and beat for 3 – 5 minutes.

This post is longer than usual. Chop-chop, Mable.

I carefully halved my 8″ cake. Placed one half on a plate. Brushed some Kirsh and then plopped a generous amount of buttercream on it. Next, spooned some stewed plums. Replace the other cake layer on top. Brush it with some cherry brandy again, then, spread an even more generous amount of buttercream and hope to dear God that I’m doing the right thing.

I think we’ve done a pretty good job with the cake. Or at least that’s what Mr. G says. He says, ‘Hmmm, tastes like blackforest cake.’

Let’s just go with that, shall we?