Featured in this Recipe: 81% Cacao Bittersweet Bar
Try out our fresh Olive Oil Cake recipe for a light and fluffy snack perfect for a Summer picnic. To welcome the newest addition to our line of dairy-free Bittersweet Chocolate Bars, we also frosted this airy cake with a Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache made from our 81% Cacao Olive Oil Bar. We hope you enjoy the soft and smooth texture Olive Oil gives to this cake and to our chocolate.
Optional: Pictured above is a lemon-flavored Olive Oil Cake. If you’d like to follow along and make the same, now is the time to zest and juice the lemon before moving on.
Oil the pan with your olive oil of choise and line the bottom with a layer of round parchment paper.
Don’t forget to oil the parchment paper as well so it’s easy to peel right off the cake when you’re done.
Beat the egg and sugar together in a large bowl, then drizzle in your olive oil until light and well blended.
If you’re using a lemon, add in the zest and juice to the egg and sugar mixture.
In a separate bowl, mix together your dry ingredients- - flour, salt, and baking soda.
Slowly add your dry ingredients to the wet mixture a little at a time until fully combined.
If you’re not using lemon, feel free to use whatever flavoring you like at this point.
Pour the cake batter into the pan you’ve prepared and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Check with a knife or toothpick – insert into the cake and if it comes out clean, it’s done!.
Chocolate Ganache Frosting
In a heat safe bowl, break up about four Bittersweet Chocolate Bars of your choice into easy-to melt squares and set it aside. We used our newsest 81% Cacao Olive Oil Bar for this recipe.
In a saucepan, put your cream on medium heat and bring it to a simmer for 5 minutes
Pour the cream over the chocolate and fold the mixture until it is smooth.
When the consistency is just right, glaze on your chocolate ganache. It should be cool enough to spread around but still liquid enough to pour a nice thin layer over the whole cake.
Use a spatula to spread until the entire cake is covered. Serve as is or chilled.
One of our most amazing and unique chocolates is our Olive Oil and Sea Salt Bar which incorporates a California Extra Virgin Olive Oil into a Dairy-Free Dark Chocolate. It creates amazingly smooth chocolate bar that becomes an instant favorite upon sampling. The light fruitiness of the Olive Oil plays with the bittersweet chocolate and sea salt in a way that's hard to describe. In this recipe, we're going to take this awesome combination and make it even better by spreading it on a vanilla cupcake in the form of a cake frosting/ganache. Note: A stand mixer makes this recipe very easy.
INGREDIENTS
CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup buttermilk (room temperature milk is a fine substitute)
OLIVE OIL CHOCOLATE FROSTING INGREDIENTS
6 ounces chocolate
2 ounces olive oil
---OR---
RECIPE
VANILLA CUPCAKE RECIPE
Preheat oven to 350°F, then line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper backing cups.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
Beat the butter and sugar in a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle, on medium speed until light in color. (around 3 minutes)
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed.
Beat in the vanilla extract.
Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low.
Beat in half of the flour mixture, then all of the milk, then the remaining flour mixture until combined.
Divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling each three-quarters full.
Bake for approx. 18 to 20 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. You’ll know it’s done when a toothpick inserted into the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.
Transfer the pan to a rack and let cool for 5 minutes
Then remove the cupcakes individually and place into the rack to cool completely.
OLIVE OIL CHOCOLATE CAKE FROSTING RECIPE
* You can use Poco Dolce's Olive Oil and Sea Salt Chocolate Bar as a substitute for this recipe by slowly melting it down in your microwave in 10-second bursts and spreading it on your cupcakes. *
Carefully melt the chocolate with the olive oil either in a double boiler or in the microwave in short bursts. (Every microwave is different and chocolate can burn. 10-second intervals are usually best.) The goal is to completely melt all of the chocolate and blend it completely with the olive oil.
Once the mixture is blended, set it aside to cool. Depending on the temperature of the room, this will take around 30 minutes
Periodically stir the mixture to keep it blended.
During the cooling process, you can choose what consistency you would like your frosting! If you let cool completely, the mixture will be like a traditional frosting you can spread onto your cupcakes. If you choose to use the frosting sooner, you can pour it onto your cupcakes like a ganache cake frosting.
Line a shallow bowl or pie pan with parchment (spray with oil just in case).
Melt your sugar in a medium, dry saucepan over medium-high heat while stirring as needed to break up large chunks. You’re looking for a copper color and no solid pieces of sugar. (approx. 5 minutes).
Remove from heat and stir in butter, doing your best to incorporate the butter entirely.
Stir in cream and salt.
Return the saucepan to the stove over medium-high heat bringing it back to a simmer.
Cook simmering caramel for a few more minutes.
Pour the caramel out into shallow bowl or pie pan and transfer to your freezer.
Freeze until solid, around 30 minutes
BROWNIE RECIPE
Preheat oven to 350˚F and line your brownie pan with parchment paper.
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy-based pan.
In a bowl or large wide-mouthed measuring cup, beat the eggs with vanilla and sugar.
Measure the flour and salt into another bowl.
Once the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool a bit before beating in the eggs and sugar.
Add the salt and flour mixture as well, beating it to combine smoothly.
Scrape a portion of the batter into the lined pan.
Top with pieces of the hardened caramels.
Cover with the remaining brownie batter.
Bake for about 25 minutes, checking in after 20 minutes. You’re looking for the top to have dried to a paler brown speckle while the middle is still dark, dense and gooey
Variations: Dried Cherries, Peanuts, Brazil Nuts, Hazelnuts, Shredded Coconut, White Chocolate Chips… So many options!
Store in an airtight container or left in their pop molds.
Featured in this Recipe: Mayan Chile Chocolate Bars
Like some of our chocolates (Aztec Chile Tiles, Mayan Chile Bar,) these fudge pops are not too sweet and just a little spicy. You may want to add some powdered sugar to get a slightly sweeter fudge pop. To add a little variety or to experiment, try adding ground dried chipotle to the cayenne. Note: 4 of our Mayan Chile Bars work as a substitute for the chocolate, cinnamon, and cayenne in this recipe.
INGREDIENTS
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate* (chopped fine)
15 ounces heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (ground, dried) - adjust to taste
Place chopped chocolate into a medium glass mixing bowl and set aside.
Combine heavy cream, vanilla, cinnamon, ground chiles and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan over medium heat. (A microwave and a glass bowl also works fine.)
Whisk constantly until cocoa is dissolved, just before it comes to a simmer.
Remove from the heat and pour over the chopped chocolate.
Let stand for 2 minutes then whisk gently until all chocolate is melted and combined with ingredients.
Divide the mixture evenly among the freezer pop molds and place in the freezer.
Freeze for at least 4 hours or until solid. Enjoy!
Featured in this Recipe: Bittersweet & Sea Salt Bar
This recipe was a lot of fun to do. BAYCAT - A great organization dedicated to providing underserved youth guidance and instruction on creating digital media that tells unique stories - came into our space to shoot the video (now on YouTube!) They did an amazing job framing shots, giving us ideas, showing the ingredients, doing the post production, and, most importantly, making the process easy to follow and understand. We hadn't quite realized how difficult it can be to have a relatively easy recipe fit into just over three minutes, so we're completely open to suggestions if you have any! We can't wait to work with them again. Please let us know what you think at comments@pocodolce.com -- Kathy
As fans of our Almond Coconut Bittersweet Tiles would know, Bittersweet Chocolate is the best friend of fresh shredded coconut.
This gluten-free recipe will show you how to turn your favorite Poco Dolce Bittersweet Chocolate Bar into bites of Bittersweet Chocolate Dipped Macaroons
SALTED CARAMEL BROWNIES
