Recipe: Lightened Up Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

One Sunday afternoon after church, I decided to bake something with the last of the buttermilk I had open in the fridge (from baking these Healthy Buttermilk Scones!). I couldn’t make up my mind on what to make, so I asked Jesse “What kind of cake do you feel like?”.

“Hmmmmm…..” the answer I pretty much always get. You see, I’ve found that boys aren’t that great with decisions - and Jesse is terrible when it comes to making decisions about food. But the first answer didn’t last long, “chocolate cake sounds good?” followed.

Chocolate cake…. Buttermilk….. way to throw me for a six, Jesse! I can’t remember ever baking a chocolate cake with buttermilk, however, I took it on as a challenge. I tweaked one of my old favourite recipes and hoped for the best.

You see, laying around the SIL house we have hundreds of notebooks. Usually they’re school exercise books (because they cost 30 cents and I don’t feel bad about using up so many :P)  and they’re filled with what we call my “recipe scribbles” – then there’s ideas books for new recipes I want to develop. (Here's a sneak peek at one of my recipe ideas books)

But it doesn’t end there. My iPhone has over 650 of those recipe scribbles written up that I’ve already tried and tested and now need to photograph and blog.

Needless to say, if a publisher ever comes knocking on our door with a book deal, we’re ready to go…. Or I’ll just be blogging ‘til I’m 110 ;)

But back to the Chocolate Buttermilk Cake.... I whipped up the batter, poured it into a loaf pan and waited patiently paced the oven, watching…. waiting…. hoping for the best. It smelt incredible – that was a good sign.

I took it out of the oven, sat at my computer to do something and kept watching that loaf pan like a hawk (yes, my computer is on the other side of the kitchen bench). A watched cake takes a helluva long time to cool but eventually it did and I carefully sliced into it.

Hellllllllllo heaven, come to mama.

It was soft, moist, with a little bit of a crunchy crust, fudgy, chocolatey, yum yum yum. Jesse and Dad agreed “five stars” were the first English words Jesse said in-between mmmm’s. 

Five stars basically means get it on the blog ASAP. The recipe app I use on my phone has an in-built rating system and we generally decide what goes on the blog by this rating system. Nothing gets on unless it’s at least 4 ½ stars so sometimes recipes need tweaking or changing and extra testing before they get to be here!

So let's get onto the recipe! >>

Lightened Up Chocolate Buttermilk Cake makes ~10 slices 

gluten free, low fat, lower sugar

3 tbsp (45g) butter, softened slightly

1/4 cup (50g) unrefined cane sugar (or use 1/3C if you like things sweeter)

1/2 cup buttermilk**

1 large egg 

2 tsp vanilla extract 

2/3 cup plus 2 tbsp (100g) gluten free plain flour

1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp (~35g) unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder 

Pinch of salt 

1/2 cup boiling water or hot coffee*

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F
2. Grease and/or line a medium loaf tin or medium cake tin.
3. In a mixer, beat your butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add in your vanilla, egg and buttermilk and mix.
5. Next, add in your flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
6. Pour in your hot water and beat until fluffy. 
7. Pour into your cake tin and bake for 30-45 minutes or until cooked through and a skewer inserted removes clean. 
8. Devour! 

This cake freezes really well or keeps in the fridge for a few days. If freezing, slice and that wrap the individual slices with cling wrap before placing in a freezer bag and storing in the freezer. Then you can have a slice of cake whenever you'd like to!

*In our second test batch we used 1/2 cup of strong brewed coffee which gave this loaf a delicious mocha flavour!

**I highly suggest using real buttermilk not milk with vinegar/lemon juice as this gives you the best flavour and texture. 

But tell me, what's the best thing to come out of your kitchen lately?

And how do you know when a recipe is a real success?