Maulwurfskuchen - Mole cake (You can guess where the name comes from :D )
A chocolate sponge cake, hollowed out and filled with bananas, chocolate chips, and whipped cream. The crumbs are then used to decorate the dome.
I will post the recipe if someone’s interested.
(P.S. No moles were harmed in the making of this post!)
Recipe, please!
Your wish is my command!
Ingridients:
Dough:
100 g butter or margarine 120 g sugar 150 g flour 30 g cocoa powder 1 tsp baking powder 2 eggs 75 ml of milk
Filling:
3 bananas 60 g chocolate flakes 2 cups of cream 2 packets whipping cream stabilizer fat for the pan
Preparation:
Make a batter using the first seven ingredients. Grease a springform pan (26 cm). Bake for approx. 30 minutes at 170 °C top/bottom heat. (How to make a batter: https://www.baking4happiness.com/cake-batter.html#how-to-make-the-basic-cake-batter )
Place the cooled base on a cake plate. Use a tablespoon to hollow out the center to a depth of 1/2 cm, leaving a 2 cm rim. Roughly crush the crumbs in a bowl. Peel the bananas, cut them in half lengthwise, and place them flat side down on the hollowed-out base.
Whip the cream with the cream stiffener until stiff. Fold in the chocolate flakes. Spread the cream mixture in a dome shape onto the base, right up to the edge, and sprinkle with the biscuit crumbs. Place the cake in the refrigerator for approx. 2 hours.
A little vanilla or vanilla sugar would be good in the cream.
I’ve never used stabilizer because I didn’t know it was a thing. The trick is to get everything cold. Metal bowl and whisk, put them in the freezer for 30 minutes or so, and the cream too. Add some sugar, whip by hand, and work fast. The texture is unbeatable, but it doesn’t keep long. A day or maybe two, if whatever it’s in is well chilled. A cake like this wouldn’t last long around me :)
Measured by weight! I love you!
‘Natural’, not Dutch Process coca powder, right?
The cake is pretty dark and has baking powder (not baking soda), so I think it’s probably Dutch processed. I also want to say that’s what you normally get at the store in Germany, even if they don’t use that word on the label.
Edit: if the label says it has potassium carbonate or potassium hydroxide, it’s Dutch processed.
Thanks! I was actually looking at info on Dutch process vs natural again today and came to the same conclusion. I was just going to tell OP and saw you told me the same yesterday :)
@GardenGeek@europe.pub, the recipe is probably designed for Dutch process coca powder. Natural is acidic (low Ph), so it generally gets paired with baking soda (high Ph) to produce leavening. Dutch process ph neutral, so it gets paired with baking powder which leaven’s on its own.
TIL
When I think about it remember wondering sometimes (when opening a new package of cocoa) why the new one had a different color than the old one. I guess I’ve been mixing dutch and natural all the time ^^’
Concerning the baking soda vs. baking powder I think there might also be other factors at play as, at least were I live, baking soda alone is nearly never used. So it might be sort of a cultural thing…
Isn’t baking powder basically just baking soda with some acid in order to produce CO2 as it gets wet?
my imperfect understanding is as follows:
Leavening is produced by the chemical reaction of an acid mixing with a base. This reaction is strongest when the acid and base are balanced (or close to it); the more out of balance they are, the weaker the reaction.
Baking powder is a balanced acid and base, so it provides the best leavening when the rest of the recipe is ph neutral. If the rest of the recipe is acidic (or basic) it will weaken the reaction. It will still work, though; it just won’t rise as much as it would have if the recipe were in balance.
So… baking powder is a “safe bet”. It will still leaven if you use it with natural coca powder (acidic), but you would probably get more rise if you (A) used Dutch process instead, or (B) add the right amount of baking soda to neutralize the extra acidity.
GIANT CAVEAT: I like food science. I cook a lot… but I don’t bake a lot. So I’m mostly just reciting stuff I’ve learned. I probably don’t have this all precisely right. And I’m not sure significant the effect of extra acidity is; For all I know the effect on leavening is small enough that it doesn’t really matter.
What you describe is also my understanding so I guess you’re well informed, even if you don’t bake yourself ^^
Thank you for the detailed explanation!
You’ve send me down a rabbit hole there… up until now I didn’t know that there are different varieties of backing cocoa!
I’ve looked into it and I’m fairly sure I’m using ‘natural’ cocoa powder. Unfortunately, I can’t give you any guarantees because I hadn’t noticed the difference before. :D