help with this cake recipe!
There are some changes I'd like to make for this cake recipe.
Here are the changes I'd like to make:
-Use a combination of whole wheat flour and oat flour in place of the all-purpose flour
-Use lentil flour in place of some of the whole wheat flour (I know that lentil flour doesn't have any gluten, so I wouldn't be using all lentil flour, I would be using mostly whole wheat flour)
-When I make chocolate desserts, I prefer to use both cocoa powder and melted chocolate. I want to substitute chocolate for cocoa powder. I've tried doing research with how to do this, it says you need to reduce the fat in the recipe if you are substituting chocolate for cocoa powder. The problem is I'm not getting any proportions/ratios as a guideline for substitution; the only thing I am getting is how to make chocolate substitute using cocoa powder, which isn't what I am trying to do.
My question is for using 1/4 cup of chocolate (just regular chocolate, not chocolate chips) how much would I reduce the oil/butter in the original recipe by? In my experience it has been that recipes that call for fruit puree and/or lentil puree the fruit and/or lentil puree provides enough moisture that using whole wheat flour entirely doesn't adversely affect the texture of the cake. This recipe calls for BOTH zucchini and lentil puree.
The other problem is, the recipe is using volume measurements for dry ingredients, which I hate; I don't mind that it uses volume measurements for liquid ingredients, because that's the measurement you're supposed to use for liquid ingredients. However dry ingredients are measured by weight because every dry ingredient weighs differently (a lb. rice and a lb. of flour are going to be two different weights when you weigh them by weight/grams). It makes absolutely no sense to me to use a measurement that weighs liquid ingredients to measure dry ingredients, which are supposed to be weighed by grams/oz. NOT by volume.
1/2 c butter, softened
1/4 c oil
1-1/2 c granulated sugar
2 lg. eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
3/4 c cocoa powder
1 tsp bkg soda
1 tsp bkg powder
3/4 cup lentil purée
1/2 lb. zucchini, grated (the recipe calls for 1 large zucchini)
1-1/2 cups plain yogurt or sour cream
Preheat oven to 350; grease a bundt pan.
In a lg. bowl, beat sugar with butter and oil using an electric or stand mixer on high until mixture is thick and pale yellow; then beat in eggs.
In a separate small bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and bkg powder. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating well after each addition; add yogurt and lentil purée and beat until everything is well combined.
Pour batter into prepared pan; bake 60-70 minutes until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and top of cake springs back lightly when touched
The internet is your friend, here. For example, if you use Google you can type "2 cups of whole wheat flour in grams" or whatever into the search bar and it will come back with either an answer or links to sites that do volume to weight conversions. And by the way, you should really be weighing your liquid ingredients too, if you want to be really precise. :)
"...a lb. rice and a lb. of flour are going to be two different weights when you weigh them by weight/grams"
Whether you use grams or ounces doesn't really matter if you have a good set of scales. But either way, a pound of rice and a pound of flour are both going to weight exactly the same! However, a cup of each would certainly be different weights. :)
Regarding cocoa to chocolate conversion, you can also google that and get answers and information. Here are a couple of links:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/08/substitute-chocolate-cocoa-powder.html
http://www.myrecipes.com/how-to/cooking-questions/cocoa-powder-instead-chocolate
According to the second link you should reduce the fat (butter) in your recipe by 2 Tbsp if you substitute chocolate for half of the cocoa. But as the first link explains, you actually get better chocolate flavour from cocoa powder.
Finally, it shouldn't matter much what flour you use to make cake, as you don't want to develop the gluten anyway (or you'll get tough cake).
Cocoa to chocolate
3/4 cup/65 g cocoa = 190 g semi- or bittersweet chocolate (deduct 98 g sugar and 21 g butter from recipe amounts)
Using whole grain instead of white flour: increase water by 14 g for every 56.5 g whole grain flour you substitute. (Using up to 10% whole grain flour as substitute you don’t have to change the liquid content).
For volume-weight conversion I use NY Bakers’ practical table: http://www.insidethejewishbakery.com/ingred.php
Like you, I dislike volume measurements for dry (or, worse, sticky) ingredients, and get really annoyed if there is a conversion tool in an online recipe that converts volume measures for dry ingredients to milliliters. How helpful is that?
Happy baking,
Karin
If you use only Whole wheat flour, you will get a very dense result. Try using whole wheat pastry flour. In my cake recipes that call for part wheat flour they always use whole wheat pastry flour. Or you could use a mix of pastry and regular flour. I do not know how dense the lentil flour will make it. As far as how to adjust the recipe, you may have to add an extra egg depending on how crumbly it comes out too. Check with recipes that use lentil flour and see how much the ratio is for liquid to flour (yes sugar counts as a liquid). You may not need gluten in cakes, but you do need a good ratio of starch and protein and not all flours have that.
This will be one heck of a trial and error cake.