Love & Olive Oil

Today I am playing hooky and skipping a class that I really don't feel the need to be in. I know that's really not something to brag about, and certainly not the most responsible thing to do, but there you have it. Today is work from home day. I'm sitting here in my comfy workout pants at this beautiful giant desk wearing about eighty-nine-percent less makeup than I usually do, the windows are open, and it is a gorgeous day! I'm not feeling particularly lazy; I still want to be up and doing things, and there are certainly things to be done, but they're going to be take care of my life type things in stead of being in class for four hours working on a final that I can do just as well at home, things.
In other news! I LOVE TO COOK. On Saturday I hosted "Chinese Night" here and had a great time cooking up some yummy kung pow shrimp with rice noodles, crab and cilantro won tons, pork won tons, and this to die for dark chocolate cake, the recipe for which I found at the delightful Love & Olive Oil blog. I really wish I had taken a picture of the finished cake before the many, many hungry mouths devoured it. I'll be sure to snap one next time. In the original recipe the batter is intended to be made into cupcakes, but I am really just not a cupcake girl. I feel like there is so much more creative liberty when presenting a full cake. For this one I baked the batter in a square nine by nine inch pan, then cut it in half and arranged the two pieces lengthwise on a long rectangular ceramic dish. I then piped on the (amazingly delicious fudge-like) icing with a basketweave tip width-wise so there was a line-textured layer of it over the whole top of the cake. (Also because I left the icing pretty thick and it would have destroyed the cake had I attempted to just spread it on.) Finally, just because I felt like it, I drizzled pretty little criss-crossing lines of caramel sauce over the whole thing so it would feel finished, and to go with the hint of caramel flavor in the icing. I served the cake with vanilla fudge swirl ice cream to balance out the rich density of the chocolate as well, but it can definitely stand on its own. This is one decadent chocolate cake.
Also, just a hint, I already had cocoa powder stocked in the pantry and didn't want to go out and buy the special dark cocoa powder the recipe calls for, so I simply doubled the amounts of cocoa in the recipe, both for the cake and the icing. This is a general substitution you can use when you want to up the intensity of your chocolate in any recipe, but I'll admit I've never used the special dark cocoa, so I really couldn't say if it is a true equivalent in flavor. I can tell you that my version probably makes the batter a little thicker simply because there's a higher volume of dry ingredients to the wet ones, but I'll probably keep making this cake just how I did. It really turned out very well. Here's the recipe exactly as it appears on the Olive Oil blog. Enjoy! I sure did. :)


Black & Gold Dark Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup special dark cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, room temperature
1/3 cup special dark cocoa powder
2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk or soymilk
2 tablespoons caramel topping

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper liners.

Whisk together the coconut milk, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract and beat till foamy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add to wet ingredients and beat until no lumps remain (or very few remain).

Pour into liners, filling each with 1/4 cup of batter. Optionally add a dollop of caramel sauce to each cup. Bake 18-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

For frosting, cream butter until smooth and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add cocoa powder and beat until incorporated. Add 1 tablespoon soymilk and mix to combine. Add confectioners' sugar 1/2 cup at a time and mix until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes total. Add caramel topping and mix well. If frosting is too thick, add more soymilk and beat until fluffy. If frosting is too soft, add more sugar and again, beat until fluffy. You want the frosting to keep it's shape when piped on to the cupcake, but still fluffy enough that it stays light and soft when eaten. Top with a drizzle of caramel sauce if desired.