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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Sebastian's Birthday: Pecan Caramel Cake

I took this recipe as a jumping-off point.

(uses two 6 inch cake pans)

Cake:
1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup (less 2tbsp) fake milk
3 tbsp coffee
1 tbsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp cider vinegar
handful (~50g) toasted pecan pieces

Salted Maple Caramel (note, for caramel that worked see this recipe):
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup coffee
3/8 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup tinned coconut milk
1 tbsp fake butter
1/2 tbsp vanilla essence
1 tsp sea salt

handful toasted pecan pieces; about 12 whole pecan halves

Oven to 375 degrees. Line two six-inch-diameter cake tins with with baking parchment. Whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.

Melt coconut oil.  When just melted whisk in fake milk, maple syrup, coffee and vanilla extract.

Add wet to dry and whisk until well blended. Lastly whisk in cider vinegar and stir quickly.

Split cake batter between tins and bake until skewer comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.  Cool cake completely in pan on rack, about 1 hour. Let cool completely, then refrigerate.

To make caramel, in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the sugar, maple syrup and coffee to a boil, stirring well at first to dissolve the sugar. Turn down the heat to low and cook until the liquid is deep amber in color, about 15-20 minutes, swirling the pan occasionally to ensure even cooking (don't stir). Remove the pan from heat. Very carefully (the mixture will bubble), stir in the coconut milk, fake butter, vanilla and sea salt until smooth. Let cool until it is a thicker constency before using on cake (it gets thicker as it cools).  Ideally chill for an hour or so before icing cake to make sure it is as thick as possible.

Layer the cake with half the caramel and all the pecan pieces in the middle.  Put the rest of the caramel on top and decorate with the half pecans.


This was a big hit - he loved it!  It combines loads of his favourite things - salt, pecans, coffee...  It was quite sweet with the caramel (and there was quite a lot of caramel - more frosting would have been way too much), but the denseness of the cake and the nuts kinda balanced it out.  The caramel was quite runny - good to wait until it is absolutely cold.  Also I stirred the sugar a bit as it bubbled and it kinda thickened / crystallised - the caramel came out OK in the end (a wee bit lumpy) - think it's better not to stir.  As it was just for us at home presentation wasn't such a big deal but the caramel was hard to make look good.  It would have been great as a brownie with the caramel sauce on the side to pour.  Not sure you could really taste the maple the way I did it - might have been just as good with just sugar.  Also was perhaps a bit shy with the coffee - would consider using coffee instead of fake milk and maybe using more flour instead of cocoa another time to make a more coffee-y cake.  I liked the wholewheat flour - a good way of giving texture (which I feel like vegan cakes really need) without adding extra stuff.
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