MetaChat REGISTER   ||   LOGIN   ||   IMAGES ARE OFF   ||   RECENT COMMENTS




artphoto by splunge
artphoto by TheophileEscargot
artphoto by Kronos_to_Earth
artphoto by ethylene

Home

About

Search

Archives

Mecha Wiki

Metachat Eye

Emcee

IRC Channels

IRC FAQ


 RSS


Comment Feed:

RSS

17 July 2007

Calling all cooks. I'm looking for some ideas for a cake. But I've got a set of stringent self-enforced requirements. Hope me please. [More:] So it's the annual Eurovision cake competition in sunny old halifax. A bunch of us get together and make cakes and them vote for them Eurovision style. It's a hoot. Last year got me to third place with the mayonnaise chocolate cake. This year I have a plan, but no idea how to execute it...

So, I want to make a vegan cake, & I want it to have potato in it. And lots of fruit. And I want it to be quite a light cake. I'm pretty sure that I can use Crazy Cake as a basic mix, then add a bunch of fruit & cook it with a series of diagonal layers of potato. I'll probably add a bunch of spice to it too.

But that's just me saying what I want with no idea of how or at what temperature or even why.

So, Metachat cooks - Help me. Do you have any tips or ideas or warnings before I try and make my mixed up cake.
I would use applesauce instead of some of the water and oil, and shred some potatoes super thin and add them as well. Do you mean fresh fruit, or citron? If fresh, it's going to add a lot of water content, so you have to adjust for that as well. The potato will absorb some, so you have to adjust for that as well. It's all very scientific, my dear chap.
posted by iconomy 17 July | 17:59
Maybe use sweet potato instead of regular potato? Might blend better with the spice and fruit. Not sure how to execute, though... maybe cooked mashed sweet potato in the batter?
posted by Pips 17 July | 18:08
this wouldn't be "light," but you could use potato for crust; make a sort of gallette as the crust.
this might play well as a sweet/savoury combo with the fruit.
i guess this is heading more into pie or flan territory, though.
posted by chococat 17 July | 18:36
You could make a vegan carrot cake, substituting half the carrot with half grated sweet potato.

250g (8oz) wholemeal flour
1 tblsp. ground cinnamon
1 tblsp. grated nutmeg
2 tsp. baking powder
100g (4oz) margarine
100g (4oz) light muscovado sugar
100g (4oz) maple syrup
250g (8oz) carrots, finely grated
50g (2oz) walnuts, chopped
50g (2oz) sultanas

Method
1. Mix together flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and baking powder. Melt the margarine with the sugar and maple syrup, then stir into the flour.

2. Add grated carrots, walnuts and sultanas, mix well.

3. Spoon into a greased, base lined 1 lb loaf tin, bake Gas 3, 160C for one hour and 15 minutes.

4. Leave to cool in the tin for ten minutes, then cool on a wire rack.


Then for the filling/icing, try this:

Beat mashed potato, icing sugar, soya milk and vegan margarine together with zest and juice of lemon/orange and a little vanilla extract until you get the consistency and flavour you want. I suspect you'd need a fairly high margarine/sugar ratio to potato, to prevent it from being too starchy.
posted by essexjan 18 July | 00:42
I'll de-lurk for this one. Just some ideas:
Would you consider incorporating the potato aspect into a sort of marzipan cream (mashed potatoes, adding sugar, powdered almonds, a bit of soya/rice milk and *good* almond extract) and for the cake, maybe a gingerbread?
I think Pip's & iconomy's suggestions for applesauce and sweet potato would work really well in a gingerbread type cake, especially with some preserved ginger thrown in. It wouldn't be 'light' though.
Maybe for the fruit: orange segments on top? They'll stick to a whipped marzipan mixture so long as they're not wet. Almond, ginger and oranges. Just a suggestion.

Then again, you could also just use (some) potato flour instead of wheat flour for the actual cake.

Man, it's bright in here. ~goes back into the shadows~
posted by Kai 18 July | 01:47
um, err, lesson #1 about posting: pre-read all posts by hitting refresh *before* posting, especially if you've held off submitting while your account is being activated.

in an attempt to save face: sure, just follow essexjean's recipe...

(now I'll really go back into the shadows and let the grown-ups play)
posted by Kai 18 July | 01:53
stay and play, stay and play! we only look like grownups.
posted by taz 18 July | 02:00
How can I be a grown-up? I'm only 4ft 11!
posted by essexjan 18 July | 02:05
I'm so befuzzled. Potato? In cake?
posted by chrismear 18 July | 03:16
Potato by itself is a fairly flavourless starch, usually enhanced in cooking by the addition of seasonings or by frying. So, provided the proportions are right, it would go well in a cake. I'd think a floury potato such as a King Edward or a Maris Piper would be better than a waxier variety. I would also not recommend new potatoes in cakes ;-)
posted by essexjan 18 July | 03:47
That makes complete sense. It still feels weird to me, though. Then again, I only recently accepted that cheesecake actually contains cheese, so I'm hardly a good judge of ingredients.
posted by chrismear 18 July | 03:56
i think very thinly slices oiled potatoes on the edges and sides might complement a very richly chocolatey cake, maybe with strawberries or raspberries, apricots even.
i'm going to variated on your crazy cake.
posted by ethylene 18 July | 04:06
extra d, oops
posted by ethylene 18 July | 04:07
Hi Kai, Hi Kai!

I like saying that.
posted by iconomy 18 July | 07:53
Next Food Network Star || This is one of my favorite MeCha Wiki pages.

HOME  ||   REGISTER  ||   LOGIN