Eggless Chocolate and Caramel Swirl Cake

Hello everyone! How are we all post-Easter?

I had a pretty relaxed Easter… did some baking, did some housework, went to church, went for some walks, caught up with friends and family. It was so good to have a break! I had to go into the lab a couple of times, but it wasn’t too bad.

On Monday we had a family dinner, and now that I have a blog, everyone thinks I’m some sort of whiz baker, so I was assigned dessert duty. Anybody can start a blog, it doesn’t make you a pro. Nonetheless, I didn’t really mind bringing the sweet. My dad is allergic to eggs… so I had to make something egg-free. I had a bunch of cheap easter eggs lying around (the kind that are edible, but not amazing), so I decided to incorporate them into my baking. So I made an eggless cake with chocolate eggs, haha! I wanted my cake to be kind of reminiscent of caramel-filled chocolate eggs, so I made some caramel from a tin of Sweetened Condensed Milk and swirled that through.

This cake was a bit on the experimental side. I took inspiration from this Dulce de Leche swirl pound cake, and these Eggless Vanilla Cupcakes. It turned out pretty well. Most cakes really do benefit from eggs though, so if you don’t have to deal with an allergy, I’d recommend using a standard eggy sponge cake as a base instead, but if you do have an allergy, try this out!

The cake went down pretty well. My cousin and his girlfriend brought a tasty banana and feijoa cake too. I have to make a shout out to them, as he was pulling my leg all evening in regards to this whole blogging business. I think he’s just jealous.

A little bit of prep is required for this cake. You’ll need some caramel. If you can buy caramel, great, but if not, a pretty easy substitution is to put an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot and cover it with water and boil it for about 4 hours. Just make sure to keep an eye on it and top up the water if it evaporates off too much. Let it cool down before opening. You’ll probably want to do this a day (or more) before baking the cake. My caramel was a little bit thicker than I wanted for swirling through the cake, so I mixed it with a splash of milk to get it to the consistency of peanut butter.

You will also require cake flour, to get extra air into the mix and get a nice texture. To make this, take All Purpose Flour and for every cup of flour, substitute 2 tablespoons of flour for 2 tablespoons of cornflour. Combine and sift the flour 5-6 times.

Then, all you have to do is make your cake batter, stir in some chocolate chips (or chocolate eggs!), pour it into your tin and swirl through half a tin of caramel. I topped mine with drizzled melted chocolate and caramel, but you could do a ganache or even just a dusting of icing sugar, depending on how decadent/lazy you’re feeling.

Ingredients

• 300g cake flour
• 150g caster sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup oil
• 2 tablespoons vanilla essence
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 150g chocolate chips
• 1/2 can of caramel (i.e. about 200g)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Prepare a 22cm cake tin by greasing and dusting with flour.
3. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the sugar and combine.
4. In a small bowl, mix together the milk and vinegar.  Add the remaining wet ingredients and whisk.
5. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
6. Fold in the chocolate.
7. Pour the batter into the cake tin. Drop spoonfuls of caramel around the tin and use a bread and butter knife to swirl it gently through the batter. Don’t mix it in too much.
8. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the cake is springy, golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
9. Cool on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar or drizzle with melted chocolate and caramel.