Chocolate Bundt Cakes (makes 12)

Chocolate Bundt Cakes by The Fat Foodie

The 13th of May was the 1 year anniversary of my blog and today is my 100th blog post, so I thought I’d follow in the footsteps of The Great British Bake Off and bake a ‘Showstopper’ to mark the occasion. I originally started my blog (which turned into The Fat Foodie website) as a way to showcase my writing skills in order to try to get a particular job that I really wanted at the time. Sadly, I wasn’t successful in getting the job and although as a result, I did think about calling it a day with the blog (I think at that point there was only a couple of months worth of blog posts on it), I’m really pleased I didn’t.

My website has become an extremely enjoyable activity for me. This might sound odd, but prior to starting the blog I never thought in a million years that I would have my own website. I wasn’t (and still am not) a ‘computery’ ‘techie’ type of person, so to find myself regularly contributing to the internet still thrills me every Sunday and Wednesday morning when I boost my blog posts through my social media channels.

I guess the experience of starting and maintaining my own website has taught me that we shouldn’t hold on to a rigid view of our own sense of who we think are because we can change over time to become something other than what we believe to be true. We can adapt and develop skills that we never knew existed within us and this can help us to contribute to the world in ways that we never considered possible before. That’s what my website has done for me.

So all I’ve got left to say is thanks very much for visiting my website and reading my posts. I hope to continue for a good while yet! Now on to the showstopper!

The other day I was in Lidl and a box of six silicone bundt cases caught my eye, particularly because they were only £1.99. Silicone baking cases are renowned for being pricey so I didn’t hesitate to pick up two boxes. I’ve been mulling over what I was going to bake in them for a while now, but I eventually decided to go with chocolate bundt cakes because I don’t think you can beat a decent chocolate cake in terms of both visual impact and taste.

These chocolate bundt cakes have a hefty whack of good quality dark chocolate in them due to the inclusion of cocoa powder and the dark chocolate drizzled over them. These two forms of pure dark chocolate are further enhanced by the dark brown sugar, which creates a deep, fudgy flavour. In terms of difficulty, these chocolate bundt cakes are really simple to make, involving nothing more taxing than measuring out your wet and dry ingredients into separate bowls and then just blending them together to create your cake mix.

Other than the beautiful taste of the chocolate sponge, I think the real impact of these cakes comes from whatever you decide to bake them in, such as the silicone bundt cases, but you could just as easily use plain old cupcake cases. You certainly don’t need to dust them with edible gold glitter either. It’s just I’ve got the stunning visual impact of my website to take into consideration, you know?  😉

Ingredients:

220g dark brown sugar
120g fine polenta (aka cornmeal)
50g gluten-free flour (I use Dove’s Farm G/F flour because it’s made with low FODMAP ingredients whereas many other gluten-free flours are made with high FODMAP options.)
90g ground almonds
80g cocoa powder
A pinch of salt
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
120g butter (or a dairy-free version)
100g coconut oil (melted)
4 eggs
60ml rice milk
100g dark chocolate (for decoration)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F/Gas mark 4.

Lay out your silicone bundt cases or cupcake cases onto a flat baking tray.

Measure all of the wet ingredients into a mixing bowl.

Measure all of the dry ingredients into another bowl.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix well.

Pour equal amounts of the cake mix into the silicone bundt cases and lay them on the baking tray.

Tap them firmly on a work surface a few times (to help prevent bubbles in the base of the bundts) and bake in the oven for around 25 mins. (They’re cooked if a skewer pushed into the middle of a couple of the cakes comes out entirely clean.)

Leave to cool on a cooling rack before taking the bundts out of their cases.

Once cool, melt the dark chocolate in the microwave and drizzle it over the chocolate bundt cakes.

Feel free to dust the bundts with completely unnecessary edible gold glitter if you like.

Chocolate Bundt Cakes by The Fat Foodie

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Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Banana Muffins (Makes 12)

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Banana Muffins Made by The Fat Foodie

Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Banana Muffins Made by The Fat Foodie

At the end of last week I went to the fruit bowl and discovered that I had some firm bananas that needed to be used up before they turned into high FODMAP over-ripe ones, so I decided to turn them into something tasty. After a quick search on the internet I decided it make them into chocolate banana muffins.

The recipe I used is from Nigella Lawson’s book, Kitchen, a sizable tome which focuses on hearty ‘real food’ family recipes that can be easily adapted to suit what’s in your kitchen cupboards.

Although the chocolate banana muffins were ridiculously easy to make and tasted quite nice overall, I wish I’d gone with my instincts and added chopped walnuts and chocolate chips into the cake batter before I baked them. I think the addition of texture in this way would have made them just that little bit more special. As it was, my topping of drizzled icing sugar and a solitary little walnut perching on the summit of each muffin didn’t quite hit the taste target for me. But regardless, the bananas still got eaten and after all, isn’t discovering what you’d have done differently half the fun of cooking?

Ingredients:

3 firm bananas

125 ml vegetable oil

2 large eggs

100g brown sugar

200g gluten-free plain flour (I use Dove’s Farm G/F flour because it’s made with low FODMAP ingredients whereas many other gluten-free flours are made with high FODMAP options.)

3 tbsps. cocoa powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180C Fan/400°F/Gas mark 6 and set out 12 muffin cases in a muffin tin.

In a big bowl, mash your bananas and then mix in (I always use an electric whisk) the oil, eggs and sugar.

In a separate bowl mix the flour, cocoa and bicarb together. If you want to add chopped nuts or chocolate chips into the mix then do so now. Add this dry mixture to your wet mixture and whisk until it’s all combined.

Divide the mixture equally into the muffin cases.

Bake in the oven for 15–20 minutes. When you can pierce the middle of the muffins with a metal skewer or a cocktail stick and it comes out clean with no wet batter sticking to it, they’re done.

Leave to cool (if you can without munching them) and then drizzle with icing sugar and top with a walnut.