It’s good to be back in the kitchen. I recently moved house, but the kitchen is unpacked and I am ready to bake. To start things off with a bang, I am making cream-filled cakes. Besides, I have a specialty pan whose design is for such cakes and it needs breaking in.
In online searches I found several recipes for homemade ‘Ding Dongs.’ I borrowed ideas from different ones and put together my decadent beauties. I chose a vegan recipe that included Black cocoa powder. It gives Ding Dongs and Oreos their signature flavor – you’ll know when you smell it. Altering for high altitude was basic – more flour, less baking powder. On a hunch I used less maple syrup so that I would get light cakes that wouldn’t get weighted down by the filling and altitude, and the hunch paid off.
The filling is a cashew cream that has a step done in advance, so start there. The recipe may seem like a lot of work but the cakes are worth it. I inhaled my first one. I am now savoring my second.
Until next time, happy baking!
Cream-Filled Mini Cakes
Equipment
- Creme Snack Cake Pan
- Electric Mixer
- Pastry bag with large round tip
- Blender
Ingredients
Cashew Cream Filling
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 1/3 cup water
- 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons organic powdered sugar
- dash fine sea salt
Cupcakes
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoons black cocoa powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup organic sugar
Chocolate Coating
- 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon coconut oil
Instructions
- Prepare the filling:
- In a bowl, cover cashews with water and let sit at least 3 hours (no longer than 8). Drain completely, then combine drained cashews with 1/3 cup fresh water and blend in a high-speed blender until very smooth. Add vanilla, powdered sugar and salt and blend again. Chill in fridge. You will have leftovers you can add to smoothies or atop other baked goods.
- Prepare the cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 325F with rack in middle of oven. Lightly coat Fat Daddio’s Choco Creme Snack Cake Pan with canola cooking spray and set aside.
- Whisk vinegar into milk and set aside for 5 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powders, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large mixing bowl combine all wet ingredients, including milk mixture and sugar, and beat on medium with an electric mixer. Add dry ingredients to wet in two batches, mixing as you go. Beat for a minute more.
- Use a scoop to fill the pan cavities 2/3 full. Bake for 17-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cakes cool in the pan.
- Prepare the coating:
- In a double boiler, melt the chocolate. When melted, stir in coconut oil.
- Assemble the cupcakes:
- You will need a cake decorator bag fitted with a large circle shaped tip.
- Fill bag with the chilled filling. Poke a hole in the center of each cake with the tip making sure you don’t go all the way to the bottom. Squeeze the bag to fill the center, slowly lifting the bag until icing fills to the top. Wipe excess icing off the top of the cake.
- Place cakes on a cooling rack with waxed paper underneath. Pour the coating over each cake using a spoon to either remove excess or fill in uncoated gaps on the sides. As an alternate, you can dip just the top of each cake into the coating. Put cakes in the fridge to set the coating, about 10 minutes.
[…] reacquaint me with lesser used ingredients. A recent search uncovered black cocoa powder from my Cream-Filled Mini Cakes. This cocoa is a Dutch process cocoa powder which is “washed with a potassium carbonate solution […]