Sunday, January 24, 2010

Vanilla Chocolate Swirl cake


As you may know by now I quite like desserts. And cakes definitely feature quite high on my desserts list. I am not sure if its the actual end product or the baking process (which envelopes your house in this warm sugary aroma) which I like more. I find there is something infinitely therapeutic about mixing together a cake batter. The company of sugar, butter and vanilla essence can make anyone happy, don't you think? Add chocolate to the mix and you have quite a party.

So baking this vanilla chocolate swirl cake made me quite happy on a recent day off. I had been drooling over several swirl cake recipes from a few of my favorite blogs and had them bookmarked as must tries. I finally decided to try this one especially because it had room for addition of nuts. The original recipe called for pistachios and pistachio paste. I didn't have any of the paste so I skipped that and I used chopped hazelnuts instead of the pistachios. The hazelnuts substitution was well thought out in an attempt to recreate the gooey chocolatey heaven presented by a Ferrero-Rocher. And it didn't disappoint!

I am sending this as an entry to the Cakes and Cookies event hosted at this beautiful Indian food blog, Spices Etc.


Recipe from 101cookbooks and edited:
(I skipped the ganache from the original recipe but I am sure it will be lovely on this cake)

270 g (2 C) flour
2 tsp baking powder (1 envelope)
1 tsp baking soda
150 g (2/3 C) butter, at room temperature
300 g (1 1/4 C) white sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 C (3 x 125 ml) plain yogurt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
60 g (1/3 C) chocolate chips
60 g (1/3 C) shelled hazelnuts chopped

- Preheat your oven to 180C (360F). Grease a 25cm (10-inch) cake pan, preferably non-stick.
- Prepare the chocolate batter. In a food processor, mix together half of the sugar and half of the butter and beat until fluffy. Add in two of the eggs, one at a time mixing between each. Add in half of the yogurts and all the vanilla extract, mix again.
- In a medium bowl, combine half of the flour with half of the baking powder, half of the baking soda and all the cocoa powder.
- Add the flour mixture into the food processor and mix again until just combined. Add half the chocolate chips and mix well.
- Pour the batter into the cake pan, and reserve in the refrigerator.
- Rinse the bowl of the food processor and prepare the vanilla batter by mixing together the rest of the sugar and butter. Add in the last two eggs, one at a time mixing in between. Add the rest of the yogurt and mix again.
- In a medium bowl, combine remainder of the flour with the remainder of the baking powder and the baking soda. Add this to the sugar mixture and mix until just combined.
- Take the cake pan out of the fridge and sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips and the chopped hazelnuts on top of the chocolate batter.
- Gently pour the vanilla batter on top and smooth out the surface with a spatula.
- Put into the over to bake for about an hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let rest for five minutes on the counter in pan. Then turn it out onto a rack to cool completely.

10 comments:

  1. oh my, the chocolate swirl cake looks delicious and a very nice click!

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  2. this looks soo soft and spongy. yum! thanks for sharing.

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  3. Yep, there sure is no company like sugar, vanilla, butter and chocolate! Your vanilla chocolate cake has me in an absolute swirl, Radhika!! I so wish that fork was in my hand, about to land in my mouth!!
    Since I too love a good binge of Ferrero-Rocher, I really like your substitution of hazelnuts instead of pistachios ... chocolate in the company of hazelnut, just transforms into this goddess , don't you think?

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  4. Thanks Sheetal! I agree, hazelnut and chocolate together equals bliss!

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  5. what a beauty..love the click..and love the sift and yummy cake..

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  6. beautiful click radhika,u got a very lovely blog as well..cake looks very nice and yum

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  7. I thought it was an excellent blog, that information has been very helpful in my life, I am a desserts lover, so I really enjoyed this reading, this weekend I want to do one! Thanks for this great moment!

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