Recipe: Eggless Chocolate Cake

I was helping my parents pack up for their move, and my mom gave me a bunch of canned goods that she didn't want to schlep around with her. She gave me three cans of condensed milk. I've never used that before; I just knew it was in some dessert recipes. I quickly found this post on the Insanely Good blog which lists 30 easy recipes that call for condensed milk. Voilà!

I decided to try the eggless chocolate cake recipe from the Spice Up the Curry vegetarian blog. My boyfriend and I were going to another couple's house for dinner, so I thought it might be nice to bring this along for dessert. 

Ingredients  

• ▢1 ½ cup All purpose flour

• ▢3 tablespoons Unsweetened cocoa powder

• ▢1 ½ teaspoons Baking powder

• ▢¾ teaspoon Baking soda

• ▢1 cup Sweetened Condensed milk

• ▢¾ cup Unsalted Butter melted and cooled

• ▢1 ½ teaspoons Pure Vanilla extract

• ▢¾ cup Water

Instructions 

Prep:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F for at least 10 minutes.
2. Melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave. Or melt it on the stovetop, but don’t let it boil. Let the melted butter cool down.
3. Using this melted butter, grease a 9-inch round cake pan (w/ 2-inches high sides) using a pastry brush and keep it aside.

Making Cake:

1. Place a strainer in the bowl and add dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder) into the strainer. Sift this mixture into a bowl to break all the lumps. Using a wire whisk mix them well.
2. In another bowl take melted butter, vanilla, condensed milk and water. Beat it using a wire whisk until everything is well combined.
3. Add dry flour mixture into the wet mixture. Start mixing using a whisk and halfway through switch to a spatula to avoid overmixing. Make the batter using a spatula with a folding motion.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Spread the batter evenly.
5. Bake into the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Check the cake by inserting a toothpick in the center of the cake. If it comes out clean that means the cake is ready.
6. Let the cake cool down in the pan for 5-10 minutes. Then loosen the sides using a butter knife. Then invert the cake upside down to the cooling rack and let it cool down completely.

Per usual, I did not follow the instructions to a T. I didn't sift the dry ingredients; I just whisked them around the break up any clumps. I did not wait for the butter to completely cool before mixing in the other wet ingredients. I may have overmixed a little bit as well. But my biggest mistake may have been using a Bundt pan instead of a regular 9" round cake pan (which I didn't have). My cake ended up looking like a gigantic donut:

I was lucky that the cake come out in one piece, but that may have been because I overfloured the pan. I really didn't want the batter to stick, so I sprayed the heck out of it with Pam, following by sprinkling (er, dumping) flour all over the mold. So when the cake came out of the oven and I took it out of the pan, I could clearly see light spots all over the top of the cake where the flour was, well, caked on. So I spent close to ten minutes using a small fork trying to ever-so-gently scrape off the excess flour without tearing or puncturing the cake (I felt like a dentist; I even had a paper towel to wipe everything off.).

But the next day (since I made the cake the day before our double-date), I drizzled the cake with probably twice as much frosting as I had originally planned, and that definitely helped with the appearance of my donut-cake:

In the end... I didn't really like this cake. It's not very chocolately, so it almost seems more like a spice cake, just without any spice. And it was dry. Not super-dry, but more icing could have helped (and ice cream certainly would have). It was just "meh." Not the worst thing I've ever baked (that would be this and this), but not worth baking again. 

After baking the cake (because I always do this after I've already started baking... *face palm*), I took a look at the "notes" section of the recipe:

Notes

• No substitute for condensed milk: Many readers ask me in the comments what they can use instead of condensed milk. Sorry to say, there is no replacement for it in this eggless chocolate cake.

The condensed milk is the whole reason I made this cake!

• Don’t over-mix the batter or it will end up dense. Once you start mixing in the flour only mix just until combined.

As stated, I may have over-mixed the batter. But not by a lot!

• Don’t over-bake or it will start to dry. Mine is perfect at 30 minutes but each oven varies a bit so do the toothpick test for doneness. A moist crumb attached is fine but there shouldn’t be batter.

I did listen to this part of the recipe and did not bake the cake for more than 30 minutes.

• Wait and let cool completely before frosting the cake or it will melt. You can speed up cooling in the refrigerator if needed.

Nailed this by waiting until the next day to frost it!

• 2-layer cake: This is a tall cake, you can cut it in half horizontally to make a double layer cake.

This one made me laugh. This is NOT a tall cake: my cake is a flat donut!

There is no way I could cut this cake in half and not have it become a complete mess.

To reiterate: don't bother with this recipe. There must be better eggless chocolate cakes out there!