eggless ridonkuchoculous cake

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

Happy Birthday Ross!

I love it when a colleague has a birthday, though the answer to "what sort of cake would you like?" is inevitably a bit boring, like "chocolate" or "carrot" (yep, carrot cake next week). Still, one cannot stand between a woman and her chocolate, and Ross, well, he does love chocolate cake.

He did at least make it interesting by specifying he wanted it to be choccy choccy chocolatey, which reminded me of salt, chilli and coffee used in chocolate to help bring out the chocolatiness of chocolate. Mmmmm, chilli.

And what better texture for a seriously chocolate cake but that of a gooey chocolate brownie?

As it happens, I haven't had the chance to stock up on eggs since the great creamy raspberry-coconut cake disaster of '13, so in my hour of need, made a banana substitution

So here it is, my eggless ridonkuchoculous (& chilli) chocolate cake. And it's easy. Yay!

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

Lydia's Eggless Chilli Chocolate Brownie Cake
Ingredients
Batter
210g (1 1/3 cup) plain flour
2 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 1/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
2 bananas, mashed
140g (2/3 cup) soft light brown sugar
40ml (2 2/3 tbsp) hot water
1½ tsp vanilla extract
60g (4 tbsp) unsalted butter (don't be tempted to use baking margarine instead - that doesn't work for brownies!
400g (2 cups) chopped chocolate (I used 200g milk and 200g dark as that's what I had, but would have preferred all dark chocolate)

Chocolate Buttercream
150g (1½ cups, just under 1½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
210g (7.4 oz confectioner's) icing sugar, sifted
20g (3 tbsp) cocoa powder
100g (3½ oz) dark chocolate (2/3 of mine was 70% chocolate and the rest semi-sweet chocolate)
½ tsp espresso powder dissolved in 2tsp water
pinch of salt

optional: chocolate sprinkles, to decorate


Method
Preheat the oven to 140°C (275°F, Gas mark 1)
Grease (using vegetable oil) and flour a 7-8 inch round pan.
Mix the dry ingredients together and set aside.
Mix the mashed banana, sugar, hot water and vanilla extract together well. Set aside.
Melt the chocolate and butter together and combine well with the banana mixture.
Fold in the dry ingredients and deposit into your tin.
Bake for 1 hour, then leave to cool in the tin at room temperature. Once cooled, remove from the pan and refrigerate for at least an hour before cutting into two layers. It could collapse at one of these stages, don't panic, just jugsaw it back together using the buttercream.

To make the buttercream, melt the chocolate and set aside to cool a little.
Whisk the butter with the icing sugar and cocoa powder until light and fluffy.
Slowly add the chocolate to the butter while whisking.
Add the liquid ingredients and the salt, and beat to incorporate.

To assemble the cake, sandwich the layers together with some of the buttercream, smooth the rest over the top and sides, and top with sprinkles, if using.

Spicy!

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk