Egg Free Baking: Orange Cupcakes

I wish I had a group of people to consult about egg free recipes. I always put so much trust in published recipes and get disappointed when they fail me. This recipe was half failure and half success. The original recipe calls for putting the batter in a 12 cup bundt pan. I was wanting to serve a small dessert to four people, so I followed all the directions except I put the batter in 4 mini bundt pans plus (luckily) five mini muffin pans. Based on my experience with "normal" recipes, this shouldn't have made a difference.

The mini bundt cakes never set. I cooked them for the suggested time and longer and longer until I gave up. The tops browned nicely, but the insides were a gooey mess. Thankfully, the five mini muffins came out beautifully, so I had the needed dessert.

The icing was my addition since the original recipe calls for putting an orange glaze over the cake, but I wanted them to be more festive with icing.

Mouthwatering Orange Cake modified from "Bakin' Without Eggs"

INGREDIENTS
1/2 C butter or margarine, room temperature
1 C sugar
1/2 C no-fat sour cream or yogurt
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 C unbleached all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBSP grated orange peel
1/4 C orange juice concentrate, thawed
1/4 C vegetable oil

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly butter mini muffin pans and dust with flour. Tap out excess flour.
2. In a large bowl, combine butter or margarine and sugar. Cream with a hand held mixer on medium speed for 3 minutes, until fluffy.
3. With mixer at same speed, beat sour cream or yogurt, vanilla, flour, baking powder, baking soda, orange peel, orange juice concentrate, and oil. Mix for another 3 minutes, until smooth.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean and tops are golden. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes.

Yield: about 20 servings

Icing Recipe

Combine 4 oz. cream cheese (softened), 2 TBSP butter, 1 tsp orange juice, 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 2 C powdered sugar in a bowl. Mix all ingredients together with a hand mixer until smooth, adding a little bit of extra orange juice until reaching the desired consistency.

Banana-Cocoa Snack Cake

My aunt made this delicious banana-cocoa snack cake while we were in New York several weeks ago. We were grateful for a dessert that we could eat, and it's free of all allergens that I can think of except gluten. This cake would be great for breakfast as it isn't overly sweet. I would have taken a picture of the whole thing, but it was eaten too quickly.

Spooky Birthday Treat

This Thursday my friend turned 28! To help her celebrate, I baked this Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Filling since it incorporates two things she loves. One problem that surfaced during the hunt for ingredients was where to find dutch processed or alkalized cocoa, which the original recipe required. After searching five stores for the elusive ingredient, I was left with Ghirardelli natural unsweetened cocoa. I hoped this wouldn't break the recipe and proceeded. The flavor was still very chocolaty despite the change of ingredient; I had hoped for a slightly darker chocolate color, but it still looked like chocolate.

The batter and frosting were easily whipped together in less than an hour (including baking). I used vanilla extract for the flavoring liquid this time, to make sure I wasn't adding too many additional flavors since the filling wasn't in the original recipe. I plan to try amaretto the next time around.

My oven required the maximum cooking time and even a couple additional minutes to get a clean toothpick to come out of the tested cake. The cupcakes cooked in about 15 minutes. While the cake cooled completely, I made the strawberry filling that went between each of the three layers.

During assembly, a ring of frosting was piped around the edge of each layer to keep the filling from overflowing when the next layer was added. I melted white chocolate with a little vegetable oil and used a fork to splatter it onto the cake (for a little decoration). The creation was topped off by a ghostly white cake with hazelnut filling and ringed by cupcakes for those who may not enjoy the strawberry filling.

One suggestion that I received is to slip pieces of waxed paper between the edge of the cake and the tray while icing. This would have made for easier clean-up, and I hope to remember this tip next time. Another change I'd like to try is to chop the strawberries less finely, and keep them more solid than liquid.

Despite some things I'll do differently with another try, everyone seemed to enjoy the cake. Though I did taste it at points throughout its assembly, I had to rely on the reactions of everyone at the party to determine if it was tasty or not (since I'm not really a fan of chocolate). A friend stopped by to help during the assembly and suggested a slight addition of cocoa to the frosting, so I listened. Overall, I think it was a success (one person even dropped the date of their birthday in the coming month, hoping for a cake of their own), and I was happy to please everyone.

Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Filling

INGREDIENTS
Cake:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 ½ tsp salt
¾ tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp baking soda
2 2/3 cups sugar
1 cup + 2 Tbsp cocoa
1 cup + 2 Tbsp water
1 cup + 2 Tbsp canola oil
5 large or 4 extra large/jumbo eggs
¾ cup water
1 ½ tsp vanilla

Frosting:
1 pound powdered sugar
¾ cup natural unsweetened cocoa (I used Ghirardelli's.)
flavoring liquid (water, vanilla, rum, cognac, kirsch, or amaretto)
1 ½ cup butter - firm, not cold, not too soft

Strawberry Filling:
2 pints ripe strawberries, hulled, and sliced in ½ if large
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 ½ teaspoons fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

METHOD
Cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F.

1. In a large bowl, sift or whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and cocoa.
2. Add 1 cup and 2 tablespoons of water and 1 cup and 2 tablespoons of canola oil. Mix for 1 minute.
3. Add eggs, ¾ cup of water, and vanilla. Mix 5-6 minutes with a whisk, 3-4 minutes with a hand mixer, or 2 minutes with a KitchenAid mixer.
4. Pour equally into three 8" cake pans (extra can be used for cupcakes), bake at 350°F for 25-35 minutes (adjust for convection); test by placing and removing a toothpick through the center. Let cakes cool completely on wire racks.

Frosting:
(This part is done to taste.)

1. Put powdered sugar and ¾ cup cocoa into the bowl of a mixer. Mix with whisk attachment until blended.
2. Drizzle in (while using the paddle attachment), until about the consistency of firm butter, several tablespoons of flavoring liquid (water if you aren't looking for flavor beyond the cocoa and butter). Do not put in too much liquid, but if you do, add cocoa or sugar. Taste. When the flavor and consistency are right,
3. add 1 ½ cups of butter (firm, not cold and not too soft). A good rule of thumb is that both the butter and the sugar mixture should be slightly firmer than you would want it to be to spread it, since the mixing action will warm it slightly. Mix until blended.

Filling:
(Set aside several strawberries for decorating if you're frosting the cake.)

1. Puree half of the strawberries in a blender or food processor with the honey, maple syrup, lemon juice, and vanilla until it is a smooth sauce.
2. Add remaining strawberries and pulse until chopped but not liquified.

Assembly
When layering the cake and filling, apply a thin layer of frosting on the cake layers that will touch the filling to keep them from becoming soggy. Also, pipe frosting around the edge of the layers with filling to keep the filling from dripping down the sides of the cake and making it difficult to finish frosting the cake.

I discussed this recipe here.