Monday, February 22, 2010

Chocolate Toffee Buttermilk Cake Mix

I've been experimenting quite a bit with chocolate cake mix and making one to equal a box of mix one could purchase from a store. The stipulation being that it has natural ingredients, from scratch and things most people have access to. You will need powdered buttermilk to make this cake, it can be purchased at most grocery stores in the baking section. You can use regular non-fat milk powder or even soy milk powder in place of the buttermilk. Mind you, you can't call it buttermilk cake without the buttermilk. No cheating allowed. You will also need some very high quality vanilla, rum extract and some oil based toffee flavor. If you don't want to use the artificial flavors, go with just vanilla. It will still make a very impressive cake.

I've found this company called Lorann gourmet that sells flavor oils that are 4 times the strength of regular alcohol based flavors. You can find them in the craft stores, near the candy making equipment. We even have it at Wal-Mart here in Arizona, so it's good one to use. I use the English Toffee flavor in this mix. It makes a nice buttery base and adds a ton of great flavor. One little dram is enough flavor for 4 cakes. I have a picture of the cinnamon oil. Why oh why don't I have one of the English toffee?! Lorann also makes a ton of other flavors. Feel free to look them up.
Chef Tess' Chocolate Toffee Buttermilk Cake Mix
yield 18 cups mix (4 1/2 mixes total)
1 cup (8 oz) butter
6 cups (1 lb 11 oz) all purpose flour
3 cups (11.5 oz) baking cocoa
1 cup ( 4.5 oz) buttermilk powder
5 cups(2 lb) granulated sugar
4 tsp salt
1/3 cup baking powder (2 oz)
1 tsp (1 oz) English Toffee flavored oil
1T double strength vanilla ( I use Watkins)
1 tsp rum extract
1 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
To prepare mix: In a large 3 gallon or larger bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, buttermilk
sugar, baking powder and salt very well. You may use an electric mixer if you have one with a large enough bowl. Cut the butter into chunks and along with the flavor extracts incorporate into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles sand. Take the mix and a couple of cup fulls at a time, run through a flour sifter. I use a hand flour sifter that works very well to help the mix become smooth and homogeneous. ( Need a picture tutorial on the mix making process? See: http://cheftessbakeresse.blogspot.com/2010/01/my-yellow-homemade-cake-mix.html .
Divide into quart size bags. 2o oz of mix equals one cake mix. This is almost exactly 4 cups of measured mix.
To bake:
Combine with 3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water
200 strokes by hand or 3 minutes medium speed.

Bake time 350 degrees:
Pan size: 2 8 inch 33-35 minutes
2 9 inch 28-31 minutes
13 by 9 inch 32-35 minutes
bunt 38-43 minutes
24 cupcakes 18-21 minutes
High altitude: stir 1/4 cup all purpose flour into mix. Mix as directed.


We had some unusually wonderful guests show up for a mid-afternoon visit yesterday. Among them was my father in law's cousin Julia. A sweet soul if you ever met one who took a particular liking to this chocolate buttermilk cake drizzled with ganache and topped with a maraschino cherry. I promised her I would post this recipe. So here is the recipe for the ganache:

Ganache Glaze:
1 cup cream
1 lb chopped high quality chocolate (we used Guitard)
1/4 tsp hazelnut oil
1/4 tsp fresh ground cinnamon
Boil one cup of cream in a sauce pan and pour over the chocolate. I added 1/4 tsp hazelnut oil, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8th tsp ancho chile powder...and blended until smooth. When chocolate is melted completely and the glaze is smooth, drizzle over one inch squares of baked cake.
These where double layers of cake with peanut butter filling...
There you go.

7 comments:

About me said...

OMIGOSH! It looks positively Divine! Can't wait to try it out - but will wait until the fam has gone on some outing so I won't have to share one nibble!

Lynn said...

Oh thank you for the tip on where to find the flavored oils. I never thought of that. I looked in the bakery section of Walmart. Now I will go and look in the correct place. Thanks for the great tips.

Gourmified said...

I'm drooling....YUM!

Anne said...

Miss Stephanie, That looks SO good!! Can you tell me where you got the chocolate for the glaze?

Chef Tess said...

My mom sent me a 10lb block for Christmas of the chocolate. You can use nice quality chocolate chips for the glaze. Guitard is the name brand I like best, but it's hard to find sometimes. They have it at AJ's here in AZ. Ganache is okay with Ghirardelli as well. It will work. Great question Anne! You're so awesome!

Kurt said...

Looks too yummy! I was wondering since I always have buttermilk on hand (for my blue cheese dressing) if it could be used in place of the powder and some liquid???
Thanks,
Sonja

Chef Tess said...

Sonja,
Yes you can use fresh buttermilk in place of the 1 cup water instead of the powdered. I would suggest using powdered milk in the mix, as it does effect the ratio of the cake mix.