Typically I belong to a school of thought that there's never enough chocolate, but actually on rare occasions I look at my stash, and think, oh well, is anyone going to help me with that?!
I've opened a tasting set from Divine the other day only to discover that some of the mini bars had expiry dates from before Christmas, while the others were still fine until June.
I also had a big box of Seasonal Selection from Thorntons, which nobody wanted to finish, as the chocolates were way too sweet, and tasted more of sugar than anything else. Not the best chocolate box.
Baking a chocolate cake is always a good way of using any chocolate leftovers. I fancied a cake with polenta for extra texture, but not a totally gluten free cake, as I find a pure polenta-based cake a bit too gritty and grainy. A little bit though adds a lovely crunch and crumb.
I have googled for chocolate polenta cake recipes, and came across Raspberry Chocolate Polenta cake on Tin and Thyme blog (from the days when it was called Chocolate Log Blog). Choclette's beautiful cake is gluten free, and is made with a mix of polenta and ground almonds.
I adapted the recipe to suit our tastes, but overall it is Choclette's cake recipe. I couldn't find any ground almonds, looks like I need to buy some more.
Chocolate polenta cake
Ingredients:
115g mixed chocolate (dark, milk and assorted)
150g butter (I used a mix of butter and margarine)
150g demerara sugar
50g dry polenta (for example, Polenta Valsugana)
2tbsp whisky (like Bell's)
20g cocoa powder
110g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
2 medium eggs
Melt all the chocolate in a deep bowl over hot simmering water, add the butter to the chocolate and let it melt too. Take off the heat. Mix in the sugar and polenta. Sift in the flour, cocoa and baking powder, and add whisky (or brandy). Finally beat in 2 eggs.
Line a spring cake tin with a cut out parchment paper circle, and oil the paper and the sides of the tin. Pour in the cake batter.
Place the cake tin in the oven preheated to 180C. Bake for about 40 minutes. Check if it's ready, using a wooden toothpick, if it comes clean, the cake is ready.
The aroma of chocolate wafting around the house was amazing.
Sprinkle it with icing sugar before serving.
I baked the cake yesterday afternoon, and today there's hardly anything left. Looks like we all loved it.
I have a variation of a chocolate polenta cake recipe on my blog, which is gluten free.
Adding this recipe to #KitchenClearout linky hosted by Cheryl at Madhouse Family Reviews, as I managed to use a good amount of chocolate in this recipe.
Also joining in with Choclette's We Should Cocoa linky at Tin and Thyme with great thanks for reminding me just how good a chocolate polenta cake can be.
I must admit, leftover chocolate is not something we have much of in our house !! I love the idea of a polenta cake - I've never tried but I can imagine it gives a lovely texture. Definitely on my bookmarked recipes list :)
ReplyDeleteIt's usually not a problem, but sometimes we do over-run with chocolate. :)
DeleteHahaha, love it that you found my ancient recipe. I haven't made it in far too long. Yours sounds wonderful with the addition of whisky. And I expect using flour instead of almonds will have made it lighter too. Thanks for sharing it with #WeShouldCocoa.
ReplyDeleteI tend to stash chocolate in secret places so that CT doesn't demolish the lot. Then forget all about it and discover it months or even years later - oops!
Thank you, Choclette, I think the flour does make it lighter, but I imagine almonds are wonderful too.
DeleteThis looks lovely - I just need to wish for leftover chocolate - not a problem though when we have heat waves sometimes I need to use up chocolate in a hurry :-)
ReplyDeleteWe don't often get heatwaves here. :) The problem is that I buy chocolate way too often.
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