Modified Choco-Mocha cake recipe for warm weather (works for noobs too!)

I tried out many recipes and modified a few parameters to convert chocolate coffee cake recipes from US/UK to suit Indian (Kharagpur) weather. Edit: If this helps you, please let me know, it would make me happy to know I helped you! Medium has a comments section, as I discovered in July 2020, in the middle of the pandemic.

This post is to enable my KGP friends/juniors to bake a tasty, rich, soft chocolate coffee cake, even those (especially those) who have no experience in cooking or baking.

One of my chocolate cakes, garnished with chocolate to hide the breaks in the cake

I started baking with 0 experience, so you can too!

You see, I hadn’t cooked anything (except horrible tasting instant noodles) before starting my undergraduate degree. Having grown up in Mumbai, I based my college survival plans on my visits to IIT Bombay. I decided I would rely on my hostel mess and the restaurants that I assumed would be inside/near the institute. Ergo, imagine my shock on finding out there is no restaurant nearby serving good food! Now, don’t get offended, I hadn’t discovered Delicious or Super-Duper (SupDup) till then. Long story short, I set about baking because SN/IG has a student oven in our mess, and there was a lesser risk of injury than cooking. (Jhonk/Tadka, anyone?)
I ordered the whisk and oven pans required. But on googling, I found most recipes were from non-tropical countries (US/UK/CA), and obviously, those weren’t going to work! The Indian ones were of eggless cakes, and I don’t believe in eggless cakes. I like how eggs fulfil multiple roles in baking. So, I tried some recipes, changed the ratios etc. and here goes: a recipe which is fool-proof and adjusted for KGP weather!

Why do you need to have different recipes for different weather?

If you remember your science class in school, as substances heat up, they change form. Since you probably know that baking exacts precision and the ratios, texture, order, all change the final result. So, at a warmer RT (room temperature), the butter will be softer, the batter too flowy, and eggs will already be at a higher temperature. Also, post baking, the texture is again, dependent on the serving temperature, so all this caused my cake to *feel* different, even though they tasted oh so gooood!

Abbreviations used:
Tsp = teaspoon. Tbsp = tablespoon. 1 cup = 180 mL (if your cup is 200 mL, use ratio/proportion)

Ingredients:

1. 100–150g 55% chocolate bar (milk or dark depending on your preference), Amul (best!) or Cadbury (has a particular CadburyTM feel/flavour that I despise). Use 100g in cake, 50g to decorate/repair cracks for good pics. Skip/reduce if don’t want “Rich” flavour
2. Instant coffee sachet, I like Nescafe. Use half of one sachet (1 Tsp)
3. Buttermilk (Amul Masti): use 0.3 cup
4. 0.3–0.5 cup Weikfield cocoa powder (0.3 if using Amul 55% dark chocolate, 0.5 if using milk chocolate. Also, if using “chocolate powder”, reduce the maida/sugar accordingly)
5. 3 eggs (if not bought fresh, let them warm to RT)
6. 1 cup maida (Buy 200g, then measure at home)
7. 0.75 cup sugar (don’t put all, add gradually until it feels a little too sweet)
8. 100 gm Amul butter (Amul butter has the right amount of salt, warm to RT)
9. Vanilla essence, baking soda, baking powder: each 1 Tsp (I like to add double the vanilla because I have a sensitive nose)
10. Drinking water for dissolving coffee: 1 Tbsp
11. Hot water for melting butter: from geyser or kettle
12. Utensils/Tools: Mixing bowl (B1), 1 kg baking mould (aluminium or borosil), metal utensil/bowl (B2) for melting butter with chocolate, electric beater (I use a whisk when I feel like a strong independent woman ready to de-stress by beating the shit out of eggs with my arms), flat/shallow spoon, knife for cutting chocolate when repairing (can replace with vegetable peeler)
13. Safety ingredients: cloth for use in oven

Utensils required. Image source: Google images, Alamy stock, Amazon product page. GIF by GIFmaker.

Notes:

I recommend the Rolex S012 Aluminium Springform mould, because its 3 combo pack is the cheapest Springform combo on Amazon and it has a detachable side which is more convenient than having to invert the cake twice to remove it from its mould.

If it’s winter, you can substitute 1 Tbsp butter from the total butter with 1 Tbsp of non-smelly oil.

If you follow this recipe to the tee, your cake won’t crack. But I was teaching Rushali, and she dissolved the coffee in a lot of water, probably half a cup instead of 1 Tbsp. Our cake cracked, and if you see the cake picture above, I cut chocolate into small pieces and added them on top of it when it was hot to hide the crack.

Procedure. Image source: 123RF, Video Hive, Sugar Salt Magic, Catholic Lane. GIF by GIFmaker.

Procedure:

1. Check that the mould is tightly clasped. Add 1 Tsp butter to baking mould and spread all over it including sides with finger tips (only the tips or you’ll have more butter on fingers than the bowl). Mix 2 Tsp maida with 1 Tsp cocoa powder and add to mold. Spread it all over by tapping pan. Don’t touch the flour.
2. Take hot water from geyser in a bucket. Add 1 Tsp water to B2, add instant coffee and dissolve. Add remaining butter and 100g chocolate separated into squares in B2. Place B2 in bucket. Go to step 3 and return here when butter starts melting. Mix, ensuring nothing sticks to bottom. When homogenous mixture is formed, leave to cool.
3. Add 2 Tsp vanilla essence and eggs to B1. Whisk eggs for 2 minutes with 4 beats per second. Beat the shit out of your eggs. Measure 0.75 cup sugar. Add most of the sugar gradually while whisking. In 7–8 minutes or when eggs are beaten such that they’re lighter in colour (or ribbon method), smell it and add more vanilla essence if still smelling eggs.
4. Add cooled butter-chocolate mixture to B1, taste. Should seem *too sweet*. If not add leftover sugar and beat very lightly only till sugar dissolves, remove whisk.
5. Fold in 0.5 cup maida, 1 flat Tsp baking powder, 1 flat Tsp baking soda with the flat/shallow spoon. Add buttermilk, mix.
6. Add 0.5 cup maida, cocoa powder, fold in. Check taste. If exact recipe followed, it should feel a little too sweet but the texture should be semisolid, more liquidy than custard and flowy.
7. When all lumps dissolved, preheat oven for five minutes (bake mode, 250 C). Google oven and microwave to know which is the right one.
8. Pour batter in baking mould. When preheat is done, set oven to 180 C, bake mode, 20 minutes. Put bowl in oven and set an alarm. After 25 minutes, put a fork/knife and check if it sticks. Ideally after 20 mins and 5 mins rest, shouldn’t stick. Depending on how much it sticks, bake for another 5–7 minutes. Unclasp the mould. Add the leftover chocolate bar on top, covering the breaks, if any. Enjoy!
9. Send me a picture duh.