Rhubarb pairs well with sweet ingredients like almonds (ground almonds, amaretto, and almond extract) and corn (such as polenta and cornmeal). The tart flavour of rhubarb also plays nicely with bright orange zest. By combining all these elements, I ultimately adapted a classic orange polenta cake recipe and topped it with rhubarb. If you don't have rhubarb, fresh blueberries or raspberries would make a fantastic replacement for these mini orange polenta cakes.

Unlike this glazed orange cake, which is made with ground almonds and is gluten-free, this orange rhubarb cake has both regular flour and cornmeal.

What You Need To Bake Rhubarb Orange Cakes

• butter—I bake with unsalted butter and add the salt myself. If using salted butter, you may want to reduce the salt in the recipe
• sugar—I like to use a combination of granulated sugar (sweet, but tasteless) and honey (with a robust flavour). Use a strong honey like Greek honey or autumn honey
• eggs—use large eggs for this recipe
• flour—I bake with bleached all-purpose flour but unbleached should work fine
• cornmeal—use a fairly finei cornmeal, otherwise the cake crumb may be too crunchy
• leavening—since the cake batter contains sour cream (an acidic baking ingredient), you will need both baking soda and baking powder for this recipe. Read about baking soda versus baking powder if you are confused about the difference
• salt—I bake with Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount
• sour cream—I prefer to bake with full-fat sour cream, not low-fat or fat-free
• flavouring—both vanilla extract and orange zest are used to flavour this sweet cornmeal cake batter.
• rhubarb—use fresh rhubarb only for this recipe. Trim the stalks and remove the leaves, splitting the stalks into thinner pieces (see photo).

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions And Variations

How To Make Mini Rhubarb Cakes

I love baking muffins and cakes with cornmeal. These orange cakes with cornmeal and rhubarb are moist and buttery, with a light texture and a pronounced orange flavour. The rhubarb is just right for these cakes. I really hope that you will try this recipe.

Step 1—Whisk the dry ingredients, including the leavening and salt, in a small bowl (image 1) while creaming the butter, sugar, honey, and orange zest in the stand mixer bowl fitted with the paddle attachment (image 2). Then, add the eggs and vanilla (image 3). Ensure that you mix everything thoroughly to incorporate a lot of air and lighten the mixture (image 4).

Step 2—Add a third of the dry ingredients (image 5) alternating with the sour cream (image 6), stirring between each addition. You will end up with a very thick batter (image 7).

Step 3—Portion out the orange batter with a medium scoop (image 8). Divide the batter evenly between the mini loaf pans (image 10) and smooth it out from edge to edge (image 10).

Note: The pan I used to bake this recipe is a Wilton mini loaf cake pan similar to this one on Amazon. If you don't have one, feel free to use muffin pans, but you will have to adapt the size of your rhubarb pieces accordingly, and the baking time will need to be adjusted. The recipe as is would probably make 10 rhubarb muffins.

Step 4—Garnish each cake with 2-3 small pieces of rhubarb (image 11) and bake the cakes until fluffy and golden brown on the edges (image 12).

Let the cakes set before unmoulding them with a mini offset spatula..

Tips For Baking With Cornmeal And Polenta

Cornmeal, also known as polenta, is made from dried corn that is ground. The grind can range from coarse to very fine. It's important to pick the right one when you are baking:

• Coarse cornmeal, also known as coarse polenta is slower to soften when it comes in contact with moisture, which you need to know if you want to bake with it because it will likely stay crunchy and inevitably add a lot of texture to cakes and cookies if you don't give it time to hydrate. Coarse cornmeal is also useful when making homemade bagels or pizza. The cornmeal prevents the dough from sticking to the pan.
• Fine cornmeal or fine polenta will soften faster when incorporated into cake batters and so that is what I used in these orange polenta cakes because I didn't want too much texture, but I still wanted that flavour
• Don't confuse either of these with corn flour, made from dried corn or masa harina, which has been treated with a basic (alkaline) solution in a process known as nixtamalization, which affects the texture and taste. In the UK, cornflour refers to cornstarch, which adds another layer of confusion.

You can add cornmeal to various recipes to enhance both flavour and texture, as seen in the recipe below. Fine cornmeal in these chilli cheese cornbread muffins adds sweetness to balance the spicy chilli peppers and adds texture too. Cornmeal adds crunch to fritters.

Other Rhubarb Baking Recipes

And if you need more things to bake with a bumper crop of rhubarb, check out my best rhubarb recipes, whether you like to bake it on its own in a rhubarb lattice pie or rhubarb crumble or mixed with other berries like raspberry in this raspberry rhubarb upside down cake or strawberries in this strawberry rhubarb muffins. You can even mix it with blueberries like in this blueberry rhubarb crisp with oat crumble topping.

If you tried this recipe for the best orange rhubarb cakes (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Orange Rhubarb Cakes

These orange cakes are made with cornmeal and topped with rhubarb. The cake batter includes greek yogurt so they are moist, buttery, fluffy with a light texture and a lovely orange flavour.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 35 minutes minutes

Servings 9

Calories 267kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Mini loaf pan
• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• Mini offset
• Cake tester

Ingredients

• 94 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 100 grams fine cornmeal
• 5 mL baking powder
• 1.25 mL baking soda
• 1.25 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 115 grams unsalted butter room temperature
• 100 grams granulated sugar
• 2 large egg(s)
• 85 grams honey
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 15 mL orange zest
• 60 mL sour cream (14% fat) or full-fat Greek yogurt or labneh
• 145 grams fresh rhubarb sliced into 27 thin logs of about 2–3"

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175 °C). Grease and flour a 9-cavity mini loaf pan (like this one from Wilton on Amazon).
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and the salt. Set aside
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter with the granulated sugar for 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed.
• Add the honey, the vanilla, and the zest, and beat it all in well.
• Add half the dry mixture to the mixer bowl and stir it in on low. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add the labneh, mix again, then add the rest of the dry ingredients.
• Divide the mixture between the greased & floured cavities, smoothing each with a mini offset spatula (like my fave Ateco spatula on Amazon) or the back of a spoon. Top each with 3 strips of rhubarb.
• Bake until a skewer inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean and the edges of the cakes are golden. This takes about 20 minutes or so.
• Let the cakes cool at least 10 minutes before unmolding them carefully with the help of an offset spatula.

Notes

• Substitutions (With most substitutions, you will have to retest the recipe to ensure it works. Tread carefully and take notes!)
  • Greek yogurt—replace the sour cream with the same amount of Greek yogurt (preferably with 9–10 % fat content). Don't use low-fat Greek yogurt, though it will work just fine, but could result in a dryer texture.
  • Citrus—replace the orange zest with any citrus zest, like lemon or clementine or mandarine. I don't think grapefruit zest has enough flavour but it's worth a try.
  • Almond—you could replace the cornmeal with ground almonds.
  • Glaze—if you want to glaze these, make the orange glaze from this orange almond cake recipe or this orange poppy seed cake. Brush it on top of the cakes
• Make sure to take the time to prepare the cake pans properly by applying a thin layer of softened butter and dusting with flour
• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!

Nutrition

Calories: 267kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.4g | Cholesterol: 64mg | Sodium: 105mg | Potassium: 181mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 20g | Vitamin A: 392IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 57mg | Iron: 1mg

The post Orange Rhubarb Cakes appeared first on The Bake School.

This chocolate banana bread recipe is a great way to use up extra-ripe bananas when you are craving something chocolaty. It's a variation of my favourite moist banana bread recipe without baking soda.

Ingredients

You likely have all the ingredients you need to make this chocolate-flavoured banana bread recipe on hand. Here's what you need:

• bananas—for the best flavour and texture, use very ripe bananas that have a darker, blackened peel and are very soft.
• butter—this banana bread is made with unsalted butter. If you prefer to bake with salted butter, you may reduce the amount of added salt
• sugar—you will need both granulated and brown sugar (preferably dark brown)
• eggs—this recipe was tested with large eggs. If you use eggs that are either smaller or larger, the results may be slightly different
• vanilla extract—use pure vanilla extract to make this recipe. Artificial vanilla extract is more potent and you may add less of it to achieve the same flavour
• flour—use bleached all-purpose flour, though unbleached should work just fine
• cocoa powder—this recipe was tested with Dutch-processed cocoa powder, specifically, the Extra Brute cocoa powder from the brand Cacao Barry
• chocolate chips—dark chocolate chips will give you the best chocolate flavour

See the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

This chocolate banana bread is a simple recipe with little room for variations. Here are a few to consider:

• Sugar - you can make this recipe with all granulated sugar, all brown sugar, or a combination of granulated and brown sugar
• Salt - I bake with Diamond Crystal Kosher salt. If you prefer to bake with regular table salt, please use half the amount
• Chocolate chips - I prefer to use dark chocolate chips, but milk or white chocolate chips would work too

How to Make Chocolate Banana Bread

The batter for this chocolate-flavoured banana bread is made using the creaming mixing method.

Step 1—Combine the butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (step 1). Cream them together until light and fluffy, scraping down the beater and bowl whenever necessary to make sure all the butter and sugar mix together well (image 2). While the mixer is running, you can sift the dry ingredients together (image 3) and mash the banana with the vanilla extract (image 4).

Step 2—Add the eggs to the mixer bowl, one at a time (image 5), making sure to mix each egg into the batter very well. Whip the mixture for several minutes until very light before adding the dry ingredients (image 6), alternating with the mashed banana (image 7), beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Once you've mixed in all the dry ingredients and banana, add the chocolate chips (image 8).

Step 3—Prepare a loaf pan by buttering it and lining the bottom with a piece of parchment paper (image 9), then transfer the batter to the pan, smoothing it out with an mini offset spatula (image 10). You can insert an oiled bench scraper down the middle of the batter in the loaf pan to encourage any cracking down the centre of the loaf as it bakes.

Step 4—Bake the loaf cake on the middle rack of the oven until the edges are set and pulling away from the pan, and a thermometer inserted into the center reads 209 °F (98 °C). This takes about 80 minutes in my oven.

Hint: Use a fast-reading digital thermometer to measure the internal temperature of the cake to ensure it has baked completely. Banana bread should be baked to an internal temperature of 209 °F (98 °C) to ensure the cakes don't collapse or have a gummy line of underbaked batter towards the bottom of the loaf.

Step 5—Let the banana bread cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes (image 14) before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely (image 15).

Testing Notes for Chocolate Banana Bread Recipe

While developing this chocolate banana bread recipe, I discovered a few key ingredients and steps that make this recipe perfect:

1. Use 300 grams (1-¼ cups) mashed banana—not more, not less. If you use too little, your banana bread may be a little dry. If you use too much banana, the loaf cake may collapse and you will end up with a line towards the bottom that is mushy/underbaked.
2. Use both baking powder and baking soda. Baking powder alone doesn't have enough oomph, likely due to the slight acidity of the mashed banana.
3. Bake the banana bread to 209 °F (98 °C). Otherwise, your banana bread may collapse, and you might see a layer of collapse or some gummy texture towards the bottom.

For more on this, please read about how to make the best banana bread for key information and troubleshooting tips and tricks.

Banana Bread Baking FAQs

Other Loaf Cakes to Try

If you tried this recipe for chocolate banana bread (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Chocolate Banana Bread

Learn how to make the best double chocolate banana bread with this easy recipe using very ripe bananas, cocoa powder, and chocolate chips.

Course Snack

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 35 minutes minutes

Servings 10

Calories 425kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Loaf pan
• OXO balloon whisk
• Braun mixer
• GIR spatula

Ingredients

• 220 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 30 grams Cacao Barry extra brute cocoa powder
• 10 mL baking powder
• 5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 2.5 mL baking soda
• 175 grams unsalted butter softened
• 150 grams dark brown sugar
• 50 grams granulated sugar
• 2 large egg(s) room temperature
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 300 grams mashed banana roughly 3 medium–large ripe bananas
• 175 grams dark chocolate chips

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 ºF (175 °C). Butter and flour an 8½ x4½-inch (21.5x11.5 cm) loaf pan OR a 9x5-inch (23x12.5 cm) loaf pan, then line the bottom with a rectangle of parchment paper. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
• Mash the banana with the vanilla using a fork.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a large bowl, using an electric hand mixer), cream together the butter and sugars for at least 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl often to make sure the mixture is evenly whipped.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing in between each addition.
• Add the mashed banana. Mix well, scraping the bottom and sides to incorporate everything.
• Add the whisked dry ingredients alternately with the mashed banana, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips.
• Pour the batter into the prepared loaf cake pan. Smooth the top to even it out.
• Bake until the edges are set and a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean. This takes about 65 minutes for a 9x5" loaf or 75 minutes or more for an 8.5"x4.5" pan/

Video

Notes

• Make sure the bananas are very ripe (with a blackened peel).
• Please weigh the mashed banana. Too much banana will cause your banana bread to collapse and it will be slightly underbaked towards the bottom of the loaf
• If you are using frozen bananas for this recipe, please make sure do the following:
  • defrost the bananas
  • peel the bananas and place in a strainer set over a bowl
  • press very gently to squeeze out the liquid
  • either discard the banana liquid OR place the liquid in a saucepan and boil it down to a couple tablespoons, stirring often so that it doesn't burn. Add this banana concentrate to the bananas and proceed with recipe.
• If you want to make any substitutions or variations on this recipe:
  • use any type of chocolate chips (white, milk or dark) or chopped chocolate —use the same weight as in the recipe. You can also skip the chocolate but I find the dark chocolate chips enhand the flavour of the cake
  • add 250 mL (1 cup) chopped walnuts or chopped pecans instead of the chopped chocolate
  • add 5 mL (1 tsp) ground cinnamon to the dry ingredients
  • add 10 mL (2 tsp) ground cardamom
  • you can make this recipe with all granulated sugar, all brown sugar, or a combination of granulated and brown sugar
  • I bake with Diamond Crystal Kosher salt. If you prefer to bake with regular table salt, please use half the amount
• Use a thermometer to check if your cake is done baking and the internal temperature should register around 209 ºF or 98 ºC when it's done.
• If you don't have eggs or are allergic, try this eggless banana bread recipe

Nutrition

Calories: 425kcal | Carbohydrates: 56g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 21g | Saturated Fat: 15g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 71mg | Sodium: 314mg | Potassium: 425mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 29g | Vitamin A: 506IU | Vitamin C: 3mg | Calcium: 127mg | Iron: 2mg

The post Chocolate Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips appeared first on The Bake School.

One of the best things to make when fall rolls around is a pumpkin loaf cake. You can serve them plain or top them with a thick layer of cream cheese frosting or white chocolate cream cheese frosting.

The traditional pumpkin loaf cake is made with all-purpose flour to lead to a tender bread that still holds up well. One common baking substitution would be to replace the all-purpose flour with whole wheat.

This works well in the recipe below. This recipe is a variation of my perfect pumpkin bread recipe but made with whole wheat flour.

Ingredients

Pumpkin breads are made from a simple list of ingredients, like most loaf cakes. Here's what you need to make this whole-wheat pumpkin bread:

• whole-wheat flour, preferably an all-purpose whole wheat or whole grain wheat flour that is good for cookies and muffins
• leavening agents—you will need both chemical leavening agents, baking powder and baking soda for this recipe
• spices—pumpkin pie spice mix works great here
• salt: preferably Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but if you are using regular table salt, halve the amount so the cake isn't too salty.
• butter, both melted to make the loaf cake and softened to make the frosting
• sugar—you can use either granulated sugar or brown sugar. Brown sugar will give the pumpkin bread more flavour
• eggs, specifically large eggs
• pure vanilla extract, either homemade or store-bought
• pumpkin purée, either canned or strained homemade pumpkin purée to remove excess water. Read about homemade pumpkin purée if you are unsure about how to remove the water and why
• icing sugar, also called powdered sugar, tends to clump and you may have to sift it before using
• cream cheese—I prefer to make cream cheese frosting with Philadelphia brand full-fat cream cheese (the kind sold in blocks)

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

With a simple recipe like this one, your options for making substitutions are limited. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind, depending on what you want to make:

• Flour - instead of whole wheat flour, you can use regular bleached all-purpose flour but, obviously, it won't be whole-wheat pumpkin bread anymore
• Butter - you can replace the butter in the cake recipe with canola oil (or another neutral-tasting vegetable oil). Use the same volume as the melted butter
• Eggs— if you'd like to bake pumpkin bread without the eggs, follow this healthier pumpkin bread, which has no eggs and less sugar and oil too and is vegan!
• Spices - if you don't have a pumpkin spice mix, you can use a combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves
• Cranberries or raisins - if you'd like to incorporate dried fruit in this recipe, I recommend raisins, dried cranberries, or even chopped crystalized ginger would be great in this pumpkin cake recipe
• Chocolate chip—you can easily stir a cup (175 grams) of chocolate chips into the batter before transferring it to the pan to make chocolate chip pumpkin bread.

See this classic pumpkin loaf cake with cranberries for a version with all-purpose flour!

How to Make Pumpkin Bread with Whole Wheat Flour

The ingredients for this whole wheat pumpkin bread are mixed like muffins or other quick breads, where the wet and dry ingredients are whisked together in separate bowls before combining the two to make the batter. This is called the two-bowl mixing method.

Step 1: Mix together the wet ingredients in a large bowl. I like to first combine the melted butter and sugar (image 1), then add the eggs (image 2), then the pumpkin purée (image 3). Use a whisk to make sure the wet ingredients are smooth (image 4)

Step 2: Whisk the dry ingredients in a separate bowl (image 5), then add these to the bowl of wet ingredients (image 6). Stir the two mixtures together until combined (image 7).

Note: the batter will be thick because of the whole wheat flour's capacity to absorb moisture. You may need to switch to a wooden spoon, spatula, or even a Danish dough whisk to mix the ingredients (image 8) properly.

Step 3: Transfer the thick batter to a prepared loaf cake pan. I like to use the OXO 8.5 x 4.5 inch loaf pan. Use a mini offset spatula or a small silicone spatula to spread the thick batter from edge to edge (image 9).

Step 4: The surface of the batter should be quite smooth (image 10). Bake the loaf cake for about an hour. The loaf cake will crack a little (image 11).

Step 5: Transfer the loaf cake to a wire rack to cool completely (image 12). Once the cake has completely cooled, you can spread the cream cheese frosting on top (image 13).

Tip: If you've struggled to make cream cheese frosting in the path, having to add too much sugar to get it to thicken, read about my trick to make thick cream cheese frosting with less sugar!

Top Tip

You may notice a gummy layer on the bottom of pumpkin bread and banana bread. That's because either there's too much pumpkin or mashed banana in the batter, not enough leavening, or the cake is underdone. To avoid the latter, use a cake tester inserted through the centre of the loaf cake to check that it's done baking.

Baking FAQs

More Pumpkin Recipes to Try

If you'd like to bake more recipes with pumpkin, you can make this maple pumpkin bread or a classic plain pumpkin loaf cake or pumpkin bread with cranberries. Looking for other pumpkin baking recipes like this? Try these:

If you tried this whole wheat pumpkin bread with cream cheese frosting recipe (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Frosting

Learn how to make the best whole wheat pumpkin bread with this easy recipe. This pumpkin loaf cake is made with whole wheat flour and topped with thick cream cheese frosting, making it an excellent easy fall dessert and also great for afternoon tea.

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 35 minutes minutes

Servings 10

Calories 463kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• 1-lb loaf pan
• Mini offset

Ingredients

• 250 grams whole wheat all-purpose flour
• 12.5 mL pumpkin spice
• 5 mL baking powder
• 5 mL baking soda
• 5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 115 grams unsalted butter melted
• 200 grams light brown sugar
• 2 large egg(s)
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 350 grams pumpkin purée or strained homemade pumpkin purée

Brown butter cream cheese frosting

• 78 grams unsalted butter softened
• 125 grams icing sugar
• 250 grams Philadelphia cream cheese (full fat, regular) the kind sold in blocks or bricks (do not use the whipped, spreadable kind!)

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350°F (175 °C). Butter and flour a 1-pound loaf pan, either a 9x5-inch (23x12.5x7.5 cm) loaf pan (like this Nordic Ware pan on Amazon) or for a taller loaf, use an 8.5x4.5-inch (21.5x11.5x7 cm) loaf pan (like this Oxo pan on Amazon). Line the bottom with a rectangle of parchment. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, spice mix, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside for later.
• In a separate large bowl, whisk the melted butter with the brown sugar.
• Add the eggs and the vanilla.
• Mix in the pumpkin purée.
• Add the whisked dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ingredients. Mix until just blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. The batter will be thick
• Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake for about 75 minutes, testing the loaf with a cake tester to verify it’s done.
• Let the loaf cool for 20 minutes before unmolding on a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

Cream cheese frosting

• To prepare the frosting, in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the softened butter and the icing sugar, then incorporate the cream cheese. Mix just until you obtain a thick spreadable consistency.
• Spread the frosting generously over the top of the cooled loaf.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• To make the pumpkin bread, you will use the two-bowl mixing method just like for muffins and other quick breads.
• You can easily modify this recipe to include chocolate chips or dried cranberries (or raisins). Just add 1 cup of them to the batter before transferring to the loaf cake pan.
• The order you mix the ingredients for the frosting is key to getting the right texture without having to add more sugar. Please read about how to make thick cream cheese frosting if you are unsure.

Nutrition

Calories: 463kcal | Carbohydrates: 55g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 26g | Saturated Fat: 15g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 99mg | Sodium: 411mg | Potassium: 294mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 34g | Vitamin A: 6316IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 93mg | Iron: 2mg

The post Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Frosting appeared first on The Bake School.

The combination of citrus and poppy seeds is a classic for a reason. In cookie form, these lemon poppy seed cookies are thick and chewy cream cheese sugar cookies flavoured with lots of lemon zest and poppy seeds.

This orange loaf cake is one of my favourite cakes to make in the dead of winter because it is simple and bright, and an all-around lovely orange tea cake to serve in the afternoon! I find this recipe is a little more manageable for a weekday bake than this orange cranberry bundt cake, for example, which is much larger.

Ingredients to Make a Glazed Orange Cake

The beauty of loaf cake recipes like this one is that you probably have everything you need to make this right now. Here's a rundown of the ingredients:

• sugar—you will need granulated sugar for the cake batter and the orange syrup. Do not use brown sugar because it would add a molasses flavour that may overpower the delicate orange flavour of the cake. Stick to granulated or caster sugar for this cake!
• butter, preferably unsalted butter because you will add salt to the batter, but if you have salted, it will work. Just adjust the salt in the recipe accordingly, otherwise your cake may be too salty
• large eggs—don't use smaller eggs because your cake may be too dry, but don't use extra large eggs because they could affect the texture of the cake. Sometimes eggs can toughen a cake!
• vanilla extract is a great complement to orange flavour, but you could also try orange extract or even orange oil to bring even more flavour to the cake
• flour—I tested this with cake flour, which is lower in protein and higher in starch. Cake flour gives the cake a delicate, finer, more even crumb.
• leavening agents—baking powder and baking soda are needed in this recipe. The baking soda is a base (alkaline) and balances out the acidity of the sour cream in the batter, while baking powder helps the cake rise up. Read up on baking soda vs baking powder if you are unsure the difference
• salt is really important to balance out the sweetness. Don't skip it. I like to use Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but table salt will work, though the cake will be a touch saltier and you may want to halve the salt in that case.
• sour cream (full-fat) helps tenderize the cake and also the fat contributes to preventing the cake from going stale so quickly
• fresh orange (both the zest and the juice) is the secret to bringing the real orange taste to this cake recipe. While the zest is added to the cake batter to bring orange flavour to the crumb, we use orange juice in a simple syrup that you brush onto the hot cake to help infuse the crust with a burst of flavour.

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

With its simple list of ingredients, you can still make a few careful variations and substitutions on this recipe:

• yogurt—you can replace the sour cream with yogurt, preferably Greek yogurt with a higher fat content to ensure the cake is moist and not dry
• orange flavour—there are four main ways of infusing baked goods with orange flavour. I used a lot of orange zest and juice in this recipe. You can also enhance the orange flavour with orange oil or orange extract, but I haven't tested either of these so proceed with caution!
• other citrus—you can make this same recipe using two lemons or a ruby red grapefruit to create a lemon poppy seed loaf cake or a pink grapefruit cake
• flour—I tested the recipe with both bleached all-purpose flour and cake flour. I preferred cake flour but both work in this recipe.

See this lemon version of this recipe!

Instructions

I prefer to use a stand mixer to make the batter for this orange cake, but an electric hand mixer will also work fine. Here's how to make it:

Step 1—Before juicing the orange, make sure to zest it first (image 1). I like to use a microplane for this. You will need the zest and juice of 1 orange (60 mL or ¼ cup of juice). Reserve the juice to make the syrup later. Meanwhile, cream the butter, sugar, and orange zest together in a mixer bowl (image 2) before adding the eggs one at a time and the vanilla (image 3).

Step 2—Sift the dry ingredients together (image 4) before whisking in the poppy seeds (image 5). Then add the mixed dry ingredients to the mixer bowl (image 6), alternating with the sour cream (image 7), beginning and ending with dry ingredients.

Step 3—Transfer the poppy seed cake batter to the prepared loaf cake pan (image 8) and bake until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean and the edges of the cake pull away from the sides of the pan (image 9).

Step 4—While the loaf cake is baking, make the orange syrup so it has time to cool down. Combine the orange juice and granulated sugar in a small saucepan (image 10) and bring it up to a boil. Boil for 1 minute. The sugar should be dissolved and the glaze clear and a little syrupy (image 11).

Step 5—Use a pastry brush to brush the surface of the hot loaf cake with cold syrup (image 12).

Storage

You can store this orange cake in an airtight container for up to 5 days. You may also freeze it, wrapped tightly, for up to 6 months. Unwrap it and defrost it on the counter overnight before serving at room temperature.

Loaf Cake Baking Tip

Many bakers and baking enthusiasts covet a loaf cake that has a perfect crack down the centre of the loaf. They see this as a sign of a good cake! You can achieve this at home in a few ways:

1. Pipe a thin line of softened butter on the surface of the loaf cake, straight down the middle. The butter will slowly melt in the oven, weighing down the middle line of the loaf, forcing the crack to appear in that area.
2. Cut down the centre of the cake batter in the loaf cake pan using a greased mini offset spatula or a bench scraper (image 13) before baking the cake (image 14). As you can see from image 15, the crack forms along where the cut was made.

Other Citrus Recipes

Looking for other recipes to bake with citrus? Try these:

If you tried this recipe for orange poppy seed cake (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Orange Poppy Seed Cake

Learn how to make the best orange poppy seed cake. This easy recipe is made with cake flour, orange zest, and sour cream to create a moist orange cake with a tender, yet sturdy crumb. The cake is glazed with orange syrup when it's still hot to add more delicious orange flavour. Great for slicing and wrapping for snacks, but can also be dressed up with vanilla ice cream and berries for a simple dessert.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 35 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 40 minutes minutes

Servings 10

Calories 351kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Loaf pan
• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• GIR spatula
• Thermapen

Ingredients

Lemon loaf cake

• 190 grams cake flour
• 50 grams poppy seeds
• 5 mL baking powder
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 1.25 mL baking soda
• 173 grams unsalted butter
• 250 grams granulated sugar
• 30 mL finely grated orange zest equivalent to the zest of 1 Navel orange
• 2 large egg(s)
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 180 mL sour cream (14% fat)

Orange syrup

• 60 mL fresh lemon juice equivalent to juice of 1 orange
• 30 grams granulated sugar

Metric - US

Instructions

Orange poppy seed loaf cake

• Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Brush with softened butter and flour an 8½x4½ inch (21.5x 11.5 cm) loaf pan OR a 9x5 inch (23x12.5 cm) loaf pan or a fluted 6-cup (1.5 L) loaf pan. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, poppy seeds, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. If the flour seems lumpy, you can sift the dry ingredients through a metal sieve to get out all the lumps before whisking it with the poppy seeds!
• In a large bowl, using an electric hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, sugar, and orange zest for at least 5 minutes until light and fluffy and well mixed. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl often to ensure the mixture is evenly whipped.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, mixing in between each addition and scraping down the bowl as needed. Beat the mixture until very fluffy and light.
• Add the sifted flour mixture, alternating with the sour cream, while stirring it in on low. You may want to finish mixing with a spatula to make sure the ingredients are all combined and to make sure there isn't any butter and sugar stuck to the bottom of the bowl.
• Transfer the orange loaf cake batter to the prepared loaf pan. Bake the cake on the middle rack until baked through. You'll know it's done because it will have cracked a little in the middle, it will pull away from the edges of the pan, a cake tester will come out clean, and the internal temperature will register around 100 °C (212 °F). It takes about 60 to 65 minutes to bake this cake in my experience.

Orange syrup

• While the cake is baking, make the syrup ahead of time so that it cools down.
• In a small saucepan, combine the orange juice and the 30 grams (2½ tbsp) of granulated sugar. Heat it until all the sugar is dissolved and it comes to a boil, then remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool at room temperature.
• Using a pastry brush, immediately brush the cooled syrup on the hot cake. Use all the syrup. If you want you can poke a few holes on the surface to encourage the syrup to soak in further.
• Let the cake cool completely before icing and slicing (at least 2 to 3 hours).

Notes

• I used 1 Navel orange for this recipe: I used the zest of in the cake batter and the juice was used to make the syrup. You may need more or less oranges, depending on the season and how big they are.
• Variations:
  • yogurt—you can replace the sour cream with yogurt, preferably Greek yogurt with a higher fat content to ensure the cake is moist and not dry
  • orange flavour—there are four main ways of infusing baked goods with orange flavour. I used a lot of orange zest and juice in this recipe. You can also enhance the orange flavour with orange oil or orange extract, but I haven't tested either of these so proceed with caution!
  • other citrus—you can make this same recipe using two lemons or a ruby red grapefruit to create a lemon poppy seed loaf cake or a pink grapefruit cake
  • flour—I tested the recipe with both bleached all-purpose flour and cake flour. I preferred cake flour but both work in this recipe.
  • This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• You can serve this orange loaf as is, or with spoonfuls of homemade lemon curd, scoops of lemon ice cream, or even sweetened whipped cream.

Nutrition

Calories: 351kcal | Carbohydrates: 43g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 19g | Saturated Fat: 11g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 80mg | Sodium: 158mg | Potassium: 115mg | Fiber: 0.5g | Sugar: 29g | Vitamin A: 590IU | Vitamin C: 3mg | Calcium: 52mg | Iron: 0.4mg

The post Orange Poppy Seed Cake appeared first on The Bake School.

A lemon loaf cake is a classic for most bakers and guests always enjoy a slice! This recipe is a twist on the classic, made with sour cream and cake flour, and includes both a lemon syrup and icing to ensure the most lemon flavour with every bite!

If you'd like to make a lemon poppy seed cake, start with this glazed orange poppy seed cake recipe, replacing the lemon juice and zest with that of an orange.

Ingredients to Make Lemon Cake

If you want to make a lemon bread, you will need the following ingredients:

• sugar—you will need both granulated sugar and icing sugar (powdered sugar), but they are not interchangeable. The granulated sugar is for the cake batter and the lemon syrup. Do not use brown sugar because it would add a molasses flavour that may overpower the delicate lemon flavour of the cake. Stick to granulated or caster sugar for this cake! The icing sugar is to make the icing to drizzle on at the very end.
• lemon—you will need fresh lemons for the lemon zest and the juice, which adds lemon flavour to the batter without adding extra liquid. You will mix the zest with the sugar first to help draw out the lemon oil from the peel to flavour the cake (this is how you make lemon sugar!)
• butter, preferably unsalted butter because you will add salt to the batter, but if you have salted, it will work. Just adjust the salt in the recipe accordingly, otherwise your cake may be too salty
• large eggs—don't use smaller eggs because your cake may be too dry, but don't use extra large eggs because they could affect the texture of the cake. Sometimes eggs can toughen a cake!
• vanilla extract is a great complement to lemon flavour, but you could also try lemon extract or even lemon oil to bring even more flavour to the cake
• flour—I tested this cake with all-purpose and cake flour. I preferred the texture with cake flour, which is lower in protein and higher in starch. Cake flour gives the cake a delicate, finer, more even crumb.
• leavening agents—baking powder and baking soda are needed in this recipe. The baking soda is a base (alkaline) and balances out the acidity of the sour cream in the batter, while baking powder helps the cake rise up. Read up on baking soda vs baking powder if you are unsure the difference
• salt is really important to balance out the sweetness. Don't skip it. I like to use Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but table salt will work, though the cake will be a touch saltier and you may want to halve the salt in that case.
• sour cream (full-fat) helps tenderize the cake and also the fat contributes to preventing the cake from going stale so quickly
• lemon juice (freshly squeezed) is the secret to bringing the mouth-puckering tanginess we expect from lemon desserts. While the zest is added to the cake batter to bring lemon flavour to the crumb, we use lemon juice in a simple syrup that you brush onto the hot cake to help infuse the crust with a burst of flavour.
• icing sugar is needed to make the icing for this cake. You can't replace it with regular white sugar because it's too coarse and we need a fine powdered sugar to make a smooth icing.

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

• yogurt—you can replace the sour cream with yogurt, preferably Greek yogurt with a higher fat content to ensure the cake is moist and not dry
• lemon flavour—there are four main ways of infusing baked goods with lemon flavour. I used a lot of lemon zest and lemon juice in this recipe. Use fresh lemons for these! Do not use bottled lemon juice because the taste isn't great. You can also enhance the lemon flavour with lemon oil or lemon extract, but I haven't tested either of these so proceed with caution!
• flour—I tested the recipe with both bleached all-purpose flour and cake flour. I preferred cake flour but both work in this recipe.

Special Tools and Equipment

Loaf cakes and quick breads don't require anything special. We are using the creaming method to make this lemon cake. Using a stand mixer makes it easier for you to mix the ingredients well and incorporate more air into the batter, leading to a finer crumb.

This recipe will fit in any 6-cup cake pan. You can use an 8.5" x 4.5" loaf pan or even a 9" x 5" (1 pound loaf pan). For the photos, I used a fluted loaf pan from NordicWare. It has an elaborate pattern, reminiscent of bundt pan shapes. By all means, use the loaf pan you already have in your cupboard, but the look will be different.

You will also need a pastry brush to brush the syrup onto the surface of the hot cake.

How to Make a Lemon Loaf Cake with Sour Cream

A lemon loaf cake is a weeknight staple for breakfast, snacks, or even dessert. Like most quick breads, you can use the creaming mixing method to combine the ingredients. This allows you to incorporate more air into the batter, creating a more delicate crumb.

Step 1—Start by creaming the butter, sugar, and lemon zest together (image 1) until light and fluffy before adding the eggs one at a time and the vanilla (image 2). Mix the batter to incorporate lots of air at this stage so it is light and fluffy (image 3).

Step 2—Sift the dry ingredients into a separate bowl (image 4) and then add them to the cake batter (image 5) alternating with the sour cream (image 6).

Tip: remember when alternating wet and dry ingredients, always begin by adding a third of the dry ingredients first, then half the wet ingredients, then another third of the dry ingredients, the last half of wet ingredients, and finally the last of the dry. Always begin and end with the dry ingredients to ensure the ingredients are properly mixed!

Step 3—grease your loaf pan with softened butter. Since I used an ornate loaf pan, I used a pastry brush to make sure there is a thin and even layer in all the nooks of the pan (image 7). Dust the pan with flour (image 8).

Step 4—Transfer the lemon cake batter to the prepared pan, smoothing the top and making sure the batter is even (image 9), then bake until set and golden brown on the edges (image 10). Use a cake tester to check the centre is baked.

Step 5—While the cake is baking, prepare a simple lemon syrup, combining lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan (image 11) and heating it on the stove until the sugar dissolves (image 12). Brush the cooled syrup on the hot cake after unmoulding it onto a wire rack (image 13).

Step 6—Once the cake has cooled completely, prepare the lemon icing, sifting the icing sugar to eliminate any lumps (image 14), then whisking in hot lemon juice until smooth (image 15). Drizzle the lemon icing over the cooled cake before serving (image 16).

Please note the lemon icing will harden and form a crust on the surface as the cake sits. This is normal!

Trick for Thick Icing

For simple icings that are made of mostly powdered sugar (icing sugar) with a liquid, the key is to add very little liquid so that they don't become runny. For 60 grams (½ cup) of icing sugar, we only add 15 mL (1 tablespoon) of lemon juice. The icing is so thick that you have to spoon it onto the top of the cake. Then to achieve decorative drips, you have to nudge it over the edges.

The amount of liquid really doesn't seem like enough when you are mixing it with the icing sugar. However, if you use a small whisk, you can achieve a very smooth consistency. Make sure to work the two ingredients together until they form a thick paste.

Lemon Cake Baking FAQs

Other Loaf Cakes to Try

Loaf cakes are a real treat during the week. They come together quickly. You can dress them up to make them fancy for a dinner party or family dinner. If lemon cake isn't your favourite, try this chocolate loaf cake or a classic chocolate and vanilla marble cake, topped with vanilla bean ice cream. Or, during the fall, make this delicious pumpkin bread with cranberries!

If you tried this recipe for lemon loaf cake (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Lemon Loaf Cake

Learn how to make this lemon loaf cake. This easy recipe is made with cake flour, lemon zest, and sour cream to create a moist lemon cake with a tender, yet sturdy crumb. The cake is glazed with a lemon drizzle when it's still hot and lemon icing after cooling to add more lemon flavour. Great for slicing and wrapping for snacks, but can also be dressed up with vanilla ice cream and berries for a simple dessert.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 35 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 5 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 40 minutes minutes

Servings 14

Calories 279kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Loaf pan
• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• GIR spatula
• Thermapen

Ingredients

Lemon loaf cake

• 190 grams cake flour
• 5 mL baking powder
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 1.25 mL baking soda
• 173 grams unsalted butter
• 250 grams granulated sugar
• 30 mL finely grated lemon zest equivalent to the zest of 2 big lemons
• 2 large egg(s)
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 180 mL sour cream (14% fat)

Lemon syrup

• 60 mL fresh lemon juice equivalent to juice of 1½ lemons
• 50 grams granulated sugar

Lemon icing

• 63 grams icing sugar
• 15 mL fresh lemon juice heated in the microwave (equivalent to juice of ½ lemon)
• 140 grams Fresh raspberries optional garnish

Metric - US

Instructions

Lemon loaf cake

• Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Brush with softened butter and flour an 8½x4½ inch (21.5x 11.5 cm) loaf pan OR a 9x5 inch (23x12.5 cm) loaf pan or a fluted 6-cup (1.5 L) loaf pan. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. If the flour seems lumpy, you can sift it through a metal sieve to get out all the lumps!
• In a large bowl, using an electric hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, sugar, and lemon zest for at least 5 minutes until light and fluffy and well mixed. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl often to ensure the mixture is evenly whipped.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, mixing in between each addition and scraping down the bowl as needed. Beat the mixture until very fluffy and light.
• Add the sifted flour mixture, alternating with the sour cream, while stirring it in on low. You may want to finish mixing with a spatula to make sure the ingredients are all combined and to make sure there isn't any butter and sugar stuck to the bottom of the bowl.
• Transfer the lemon loaf cake batter to the prepared loaf pan. Bake the cake on the middle rack until baked through. You'll know it's done because it will have cracked a little in the middle, it will pull away from the edges of the pan, a cake tester will come out clean, and the internal temperature will register around 100 °C (212 °F). It takes about 60 to 65 minutes to bake this cake in my experience.

Lemon syrup

• While the cake is baking, make the syrup ahead of time so that it cools down.
• In a small saucepan, combine the lemon juice and the 50 grams (¼ cup) of granulated sugar. Heat it until all the sugar is dissolved and it comes to a boil, then remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool at room temperature.
• Let the cool cake in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minute to firm up, then invert it onto a wire rack.
• Using a pastry brush, immediately brush the cooled syrup on the hot cake, all over the top and sides. Use all the syrup. If you want you can poke a few holes on the surface to encourage the syrup to soak in further.
• Let the cake cool completely before icing and slicing (at least 2 to 3 hours).

Lemon icing

• When the cake has cooled completely, make the icing.
• In a small bowl, whisk the icing sugar with 15 mL (1 tablespoon) lemon juice. You can adjust the consistency with more juice or more icing sugar as needed. Pour it on top of the cake and use a spoon to nudge the icing gently so that it drips down over the edge decoratively.
• Serve plain or with fresh raspberries (optional).

Notes

• For this recipe, I used a fluted loaf pan from Nordic Ware, which has an elaborate pattern, reminiscent of bundt pan shapes. It has a 6-cup capacity, like most 8.5" x 4.5" loaf pans.
• I used 2 large lemons for this recipe: I used the zest of both lemons in the cake batter (starting by making lemon sugar), and then most of the juice was used to make the syrup, holding back 15 mL (1 tablespoon) to make the icing. You may need more or less lemons, depending on the season and how big they are.
• For the flour, I tested this recipe with both cake flour and regular bleached all-purpose flour. Both work. I found the texture is a little softer and finer with cake flour.
• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• You can serve this lemon loaf as is, or with spoonfuls of homemade lemon curd, scoops of lemon ice cream, or even sweetened whipped cream.

Nutrition

Calories: 279kcal | Carbohydrates: 38g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 13g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Trans Fat: 0.4g | Cholesterol: 57mg | Sodium: 113mg | Potassium: 100mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 27g | Vitamin A: 425IU | Vitamin C: 6mg | Calcium: 41mg | Iron: 0.4mg

The post Lemon Loaf Cake appeared first on The Bake School.

The batter for this chocolate pound cake comes together quickly and calls for ingredients you have in your pantry and fridge. This is a chocolate cake recipe with no frills, so no sour cream, no boiling water, no milk, and no buttermilk. But that doesn't mean it's boring. It's not quite a pound cake in that the ratio is a little off from the typical 1:1:1:1 recipe, but it's close enough and the texture is fantastic!

If you prefer a play on vanilla and chocolate, you can also make this classic chocolate marble loaf cake or this big chocolate chip bundt cake made with sour cream.

Pound Cake 101

Pound cakes like this chocolate pound cake get their rich texture and flavour from a high amount of butter and a lot of eggs, which are whipped with the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy.

Historically, they don't contain any chemical leavening and depend on the air incorporated into the eggs, butter, and sugar. However, modern bakers may add a small amount of baking powder to ensure a cake with an open crumb and a good lift. They also don't generally have liquids (so no milk, buttermilk, or sour cream).

Pound cakes, by definition, are essentially equal parts of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. The traditional pound cake doesn't require a recipe because the pound cake ratio is 1:1:1:1 of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs, by weight, so 1 pound of butter, 1 pound of sugar, 1 pound of flour, and 1 pound of eggs. Since the weight of eggs can vary, many will weigh the eggs they are using, then measure out the same weight in butter, sugar, and flour.

The French refer to the pound cake as a "quatre quarts," meaning "four quarters." This means their pound cake is one quarter butter, one quarter sugar, one quarter flour, and one quarter eggs, by weight.

What You Need to Make This Chocolate Coffee Pound Cake

• butter—this recipe was developed with unsalted butter. If you are baking with salted, you may want to adjust the amount of salt you add
• sugar—I used both dark brown and granulated sugar, but you can either
• eggs—this recipe was developed with large eggs. Don't use eggs that are larger or smaller as this may throw off the recipe ratios
• vanilla—I bake with pure vanilla extract. If using artificial, you may want to add a little less as it tends to be more potent
• flour—this recipe was tested with bleached all-purpose flour. It will probably work fine with unbleached flour as well
• cocoa powder—I tested this recipe with Dutch-processed cocoa powder from Cacao Barry, specifically the product called Extra Brute, which has a reddish tinge
• espresso powder—this is dry instant espresso powder. It adds a lot of coffee flavour in a small amount (this is the same ingredient I used to create this coffee-flavoured cheesecake)
• salt—I bake with Diamond Crystal Fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, you may want to add half the amount to avoid the cake being too salty
• spices—I love the combination of cinnamon with chocolate and also coffee and cardamom (like Turkish coffee!), so I added both spices to this chocolate cake (though they are entirely optional).

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

How to Make a Chocolate Pound Cake With Cocoa Powder

Step 1—I prefer to sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl using a sieve (image 1), and then I like to also use a Danish dough whisk to ensure the dry ingredients are evenly dispersed (image 2).

Note: Diamond Crystal Kosher salt is quite coarse and so won't pass through the sieve, so either add it after or dump it out of the sieve into the bowl if it gets left behind.

Step 2—Combine the butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (image 3). Once creamed together, you can start adding the eggs one at a time, along with the vanilla (image 4). Make sure to whip the mixture until very light and fluffy (image 5).

Step 3—Add the sifted dry ingredients to the bowl (image 6) and stir them in until they disappear, creating a fluffy chocolate cake batter (image 7). You may want to use a large spatula to scrape the bottom of the bowl to ensure that none of the dry ingredients are stuck on the bottom.

Step 4—Transfer the chocolate pound cake batter to the prepared loaf pan, smoothing the surface with a mini offset spatula (image 8). You can insert an oiled bench scraper through the loaf cake down the middle (image 9) to force the loaf to crack there (image 10). Bake until a cake tester inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean (image 11).

Note: I baked this chocolate loaf cake in an OXO non-stick loaf cake pan that is slightly smaller than the usual 9x5-inch loaf pan. This pan is closer to 8.5x4.5 inches. The gold finish is non-stick which makes unmoulding loaf cakes less stressful, but the finish isn't so dark that cakes bake too quickly on the edges.

Note: the chocolate pound cake is light on flour and very rich with butter and eggs, so it will likely collapse as it cools.

Pound Cake Baking Tip

Pound cake recipes like this chocolate version have a lot of eggs. And even if you work with room-temperature eggs, I have noticed the emulsion breaks down with the last two eggs, leading to a lumpy cake batter (image 12). Usually, the lumps are caused by hardened bits of butter.

In order to bake a pound cake with the best moist texture and an even crumb, it's very important to create a smooth, fluffy batter with lots of air in it, which is impossible if the emulsion breaks.

If the batter breaks after adding all the eggs, you can use a hairdryer set to hot and blow hot air on the outside of the mixer bowl (image 14) to melt a portion of the butter to get the emulsion back. Once a portion of the butter is melted, you can re-whip the mixture for several minutes. It will go from looking curdled to light and fluffy (image 13).

Troubleshooting Chocolate Pound Cake Sinking

When I tested this chocolate pound cake recipe, I noticed the cake sank in the middle. There are many reasons why a cake sinks in the middle and it could be too much air incorporated into the batter or not enough dry ingredients. For example, adding more flour created a cake with a flat surface that didn't sink. However, I found this version a little dry, so I preferred to keep the flour at 130 grams and add slightly more cocoa powder instead.

You can camouflage where the loaf cake sank by frosting the top with a layer of 1:1 dark chocolate ganache made with 90 grams of dark chocolate and 90 grams of hot 35 % cream. Or a small batch of this chocolate fudge frosting.

Serving Suggestions

Pound cake doesn't have to be fancy or elaborate and it shouldn't require hours of your time, but that doesn't mean it should be boring. Slices of pound cake served with coffee or tea in the afternoon are perfect. The slices of cake make a great snack or dessert to pack in a lunch box too. For dinner and dinner parties, you can serve slices of pound cake with lightly sweetened whipped cream and fresh berries or even roasted rhubarb!

Other Loaf Cake Recipes

Loaf cake recipes are so handy to make on the weekend for weekday snacks. Here are a few others to try:

If you tried this recipe for the best chocolate coffee pound cake (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Chocolate Coffee Pound Cake

Learn how to make the best chocolate coffee pound cake with this easy recipe. This chocolate pound cake is flavoured with cocoa powder and espresso powder creating a moist chocolate cake with a tight, even crumb and a very light texture from the whipped eggs.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Calories 448kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Loaf pan
• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• Cake tester

Ingredients

• 130 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 45 grams Cacao Barry extra brute cocoa powder
• 30 mL instant espresso powder
• 5 mL ground cinnamon
• 3.75 mL baking powder
• 3.75 mL ground cardamom
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 230 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
• 150 grams granulated sugar
• 100 grams light brown sugar
• 4 large egg(s)
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 325°F (165 °C). Lightly grease a 9×5-inch (23x12.5 cm) loaf pan. Line with parchment, then grease and dust with cocoa powder.
• In a medium bowl, sift/whisk together the flour, cocoa, espresso powder, spices, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars until it is smooth and creamy.
• Gradually add in the eggs and vanilla, mixing well between each addition. Scrape the bowl as needed with a spatula. Whip the mixture really well for several minutes until very fluffy and light.
• Add in the dry ingredients and stir them in,
• Drop the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top.
• Bake until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. This takes about 1 hour–1 hour 10 minutes. Remove from the oven.
• Let the loaf cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack before unmoulding and serving.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• If the batter looks curdled after adding the eggs, use a hair dryer to heat the outside of the mixer bowl to melt a portion of the butter. Then whip the batter again until very light and fluffy.
• I flavoured this chocolate coffee pound cake with cinnamon and cardamom, but the spices are entirely optional and you can make this recipe without them (and even without the coffee) without any significant impact on texture.
• When I tested this chocolate pound cake recipe, I noticed the cake sank in the middle. There are many reasons why a cake sinks in the middle and it could be too much air incorporated into the batter or not enough dry ingredients. For example, adding more flour created a cake with a flat surface that didn't sink. However, I found this version a little dry, so I preferred to keep the flour at 130 grams and add slightly more cocoa powder instead.
• You can camouflage where the loaf cake sank by frosting the top with a layer of 1:1 dark chocolate ganache made with 90 grams of dark chocolate and 90 grams of hot 35 % cream.

Nutrition

Calories: 448kcal | Carbohydrates: 51g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 26g | Saturated Fat: 16g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 144mg | Sodium: 191mg | Potassium: 346mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 31g | Vitamin A: 839IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 73mg | Iron: 2mg

The post Chocolate Coffee Pound Cake appeared first on The Bake School.

The perfect chocolate loaf cake should be moist, with a bouncy, tender crumb inside, but should be sturdy and dense enough to hold together when sliced so that you can wrap slices as snacks for later.

For this chocolate loaf cake, I stuck to the classic 1-2-3-4 recipe which I love for bundt cakes. This is a baking ratio that is by volume, not by weight, so for 1 cup butter, you add 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, and 4 eggs (note: 4 eggs is not a volume but still, makes it easier to remember 1-2-3-4).

The full 1-2-3-4 recipe is too much to fit a standard 9x5" loaf pan, so this loaf cake is half of that, meaning ½ cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 ½ cups flour and 2 eggs.

What You Need to Make This Chocolate Cake

In this recipe, you will notice that the chocolate loaf cake is made with cocoa powder instead of melted dark chocolate. There are a few reasons why you would use cocoa powder instead of dark chocolate to make a chocolate cake:

1. cocoa powder is 100 % cocoa solids, whereas dark chocolate usually is around 70–75% cocoa (less for semisweet chocolate). This means when you bake with dark chocolate, you would be adding less cocoa solids overall.
2. dark chocolate has sugar added and sometimes dairy and other ingredients for flavour. This means when you bake with dark chocolate, you are adding more sugar to the recipe and less cocoa solids, actually.

• butter—I developed this recipe with unsalted butter. If using salted butter, you may want to adjust the salt in the recipe to avoid the cake being too salty
• sugar—you will need both white granulated sugar and light brown sugar. You can swap one for theother and the results will be similar
• eggs—this recipe was developed and tested with large eggs. If you use smaller or larger eggs, this may impact the texture of the final cake
• vanilla—I bake with pure vanilla extract (Kirkland brand from Costco)
• cocoa powder—I bake with Dutch-processed cocoa powder and tested this recipe with a cheaper grocery store cocoa powder (Fry's cocoa powder) as well as a higher quality, more expensive cocoa powder (Extra Brute cocoa powder by Cacao Barry). Both worked perfectly
• boiling water—you will need boiling water to bloom the cocoa powder
• sour cream—please use full-fat sour cream (14 % fat) for the best flavour and texture. Do not use low-fat or it may impact how moist the cake is. Sour cream also provides acidity which leads to a tender crumb. I really love the texture and flavour that sour cream brings to cake
• flour—I bake with bleached all-purpose flour but unbleached will likely work fine here
• leavening agents—you will need both baking powder and baking soda. Please read about baking soda versus baking powder if you do not know the difference
• salt—I bake with Diamond Crystal Fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, you may want to halve the amount to avoid the cake being too salty.

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities

Substitutions and Variations

• Sour cream—I prefer to bake with full-fat sour cream but you can try full-fat Greek yogurt instead

How To Make This Chocolate Sour Cream Loaf Cake

While I love using the two-bowl mixing method (also called the muffin method) for my favourite eggless chocolate cake which I use for layer cakes, for this chocolate loaf cake, I prefer to use a traditional creaming method with either a stand mixer or

Step 1—Start by combining the cocoa powder with boiling water in a small boil (or a glass measuring cup) (image 1). Use a whisk to mix the two together to create a smooth, pudding-like consistency (image 2). Set aside for later.

Step 2—Cream the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (image 3) and mix until light and fluffy before adding the eggs and vanilla (image 4), and then the sour cream and bloomed cocoa powder (image 5).

Tip: Beat the mixture really well and scrape down the bowl at every stage to ensure all the ingredients are mixed and nothing is stuck to the sides.

Step 3—Sift the dry ingredients over the mixer bowl using a sieve (image 6) to ensure there are no lumps (image 7) then stir them in until you have a thick, fluffy chocolate cake batter (image 8).

Step 4—Transfer the chocolate sour cream cake batter to a prepared loaf cake pan, smoothing out the top (image 9) and bake until the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan (image 10). Transfer the cake to a wire rack to cool completely once firm (approximately 10–15 minutes after taking it out of the oven).

Baking With Cocoa Powder Baking Tip: Bloom the Cocoa Powder

When baking with cocoa powder, one of the tricks many professional bakers recommend is to combine it with boiling water. The resulting "melted cocoa" looks a lot like melted dark chocolate or a dark chocolate pudding. The hot water helps to bring out the flavour in the dry powder, which many bakers claim results in a cake with a stronger chocolate flavour.

Since I wanted to add cocoa powder dissolved in hot water, I added a little less sour cream in the final recipe to balance out the extra liquid.

I actually tried adding up to double the sour cream to no avail. The ½ cup sour cream in the recipe cannot be increased, even a little, or else the resulting ratio of dry to wet ingredients will be off. The cake will not bake properly and collapse, leaving a gummy, dense interior.

Chocolate Loaf Cake FAQs

Serving Suggestions

This chocolate loaf cake makes a great lunchbox dessert or snack, but you can also dress it up. Serve it with vanilla bean ice cream, dark chocolate ice cream, cookie ice cream, cardamom ice cream or spiced chai ice cream and summer berries, and you can also drizzle it with salted caramel sauce if you prefer!

Other Chocolate Recipes

If you love chocolate as much as I do, check out these other chocolate baking recipes for more inspiration:

If you tried this recipe for the best chocolate loaf cake (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Chocolate Loaf Cake

Learn how to make this chocolate loaf cake with this easy recipe, with cocoa powder and sour cream, that makes a moist chocolate cake with a tender, yet sturdy crumb. Great for slicing and wrapping for snacks, but can also be dressed up with vanilla ice cream and berries for a simple dessert.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 25 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 25 minutes minutes

Servings 10

Calories 277kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Loaf pan
• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• GIR spatula
• Thermapen

Ingredients

• 190 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 2.5 mL baking powder
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 1.25 mL baking soda
• 50 grams Cacao Barry extra brute cocoa powder
• 80 mL boiling water
• 115 grams unsalted butter
• 100 grams granulated sugar
• 100 grams light brown sugar
• 2 large egg(s)
• 125 mL sour cream (14% fat)
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Butter and dust with cocoa powder an 8½x4½-inch (21.5x11.5 cm) loaf pan OR a 9x5-inch (23x12.5 cm) loaf pan. Line the bottom with a rectangle of parchment paper. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. If the flour seems lumpy, you can sift it through a metal sieve to get out all the lumps!
• In a small bowl, using a whisk, combine the cocoa powder and the boiling water until it is smooth. The consistency will be like thick melted chocolate or pudding. Set aside to cool down slightly before using.
• In a large bowl, using an electric hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars for at least 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl often to make sure the mixture is evenly whipped.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, mixing in between each addition and scraping down the bowl as needed.
• Add the sour cream and bloomed cocoa mixture. Mix it in until all the ingredients are evenly mixed.
• Sift the flour mixture over top and stir it in on low. You may want to finish mixing with a spatula to make sure the ingredients are all combined.
• Transfer the chocolate loaf cake batter to the prepared loaf pan. Bake the cake on the middle rack until baked through. You'll know it's done because it will have cracked a little in the middle, it will pull away from the edges of the pan, a cake tester will come out clean, and the internal temperature will register around 100 °C (212 °F). It takes about 60 to 70 minutes to bake this cake in my experience.
• Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes before you unmould it onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing (at least 2 to 3 hours).
• Serve plain as a snack, or top with vanilla bean ice cream or whipped cream and fresh berries.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!

Nutrition

Calories: 277kcal | Carbohydrates: 38g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 13g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 64mg | Sodium: 159mg | Potassium: 161mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 20g | Vitamin A: 413IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 49mg | Iron: 2mg

The post Chocolate Loaf Cake With Sour Cream appeared first on The Bake School.

Marble cakes are two-flavoured cakes made from two cake batters that are contrasting and yet complimentary, in both colour and flavour. The classic marble cake is vanilla and chocolate, swirled together to give the cake a marbled effect.

A marble cake can be baked in a loaf cake pan for an easy, convenient marble loaf cake that can be sliced into slabs for snacks during the week. You can also bake marble cakes in bundt pans to make more ornate cakes that can be glazed, drizzled with chocolate ganache, or even frosted.

Ingredients You Will Need to Make Marble Loaf Cake

This chocolate and vanilla marble cake recipe is based on an Anna Olson recipe. It's a simple vanilla cake recipe made with sour cream for a more moist, tender crumb.

• butter—I bake with unsalted butter. If using salted butter, please adjust the amount of salt to avoid the cake being too salty
• sugar—I used granulated sugar for this marble cake so that the vanilla portion of the marble cake had the cleanest vanilla flavour, without the interference of molasses notes from brown sugar
• flour—I used bleached all-purpose flour though unbleached will likely work fine
• eggs—I bake with large eggs. Avoid using smaller or larger eggs as this may affect the texture of the cake and how it rises
• vanilla—use pure vanilla extract. If using artificial, you may have to adjust the quantity because the flavour is stronger.
• chocolate—use a dark chocolate that is not too sweet and with a high percent of cocoa solids (around 70 %). Do not use chocolate chips as they don't melt well and they may make the cake too sweet
• sour cream—please use full-fat sour cream (the sour cream I use is 14 % fat) for the best flavour and texture. Marble cakes made with sour cream are a little more moist
• leavening—you will need baking powder for this cake. Please read about baking soda versus baking powder if you are unsure how they differ.
• salt—I bake with Diamond Crystal Fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, please add half the amount or the cookies may be too salty

Please see the recipe card for the complete list of ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

• Yogurt—If you want to make this recipe, but you don't have any sour cream, you can still make this marble loaf cake with crème fraîche (if you can find it) or Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Preferably, go for Greek yogurt with a higher percentage of fat (9 % fat, if not more), though this recipe would also work out with lower fatGreek yogurt. Opt for an unflavoured plain Greek yogurt, as opposed to vanilla yogurt, if possible.
• Vanilla is a key component in a classic marble cake recipe, adding a lot of depth to the vanilla swirl of cake, without which the cake may taste bland or even eggy. If you don't have vanilla, an alternative would be bourbon or rum to replace those musky woodsy notes. You can add a few drops of almond extract to the vanilla batter or peppermint extract to the chocolate batter. You can add chopped nuts or chocolate chips.
• Spices—You can also incorporate sweet spices, cinnamon, for example, would be great in the chocolate batter!
• Chocolate orange marble cake either by adding orange zest
  • at the very beginning of the recipe when you cream together the butter and sugar. In this way, both the chocolate and vanilla cakes would be flavoured with orange OR
  • to only half the vanilla batter. This way, only the vanilla portion of the marble cake will have an orange flavour. So, when you split the vanilla cake batter in two: add melted chocolate to one half of the cake batter, and add orange zest to the other half of the cake batter.

How to Make Marble Cake Step-By-Step

Some people overcomplicate marble cake recipes by making two separate batters and then swirling them together. So they make a chocolate batter and then they make a vanilla batter separately, both from scratch. Then they swirl them together in a cake pan. That's too much work if you ask me!

I prefer to start with one sour cream vanilla cake batter, which you split in two after it's made. At that point, you flavour half the batter with chocolate. Here are the steps to make this easy chocolate marble loaf cake:

Step 1: Place the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water (image 1) and gently heat the chocolate until it is melted and smooth (image 2).

Step 2: While the chocolate is melting and cooling, combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (image 3) and cream them together before adding the eggs one at a time and the vanilla (image 4). Whip the mixture until smooth, creamy and fluffy (image 5).

Note: Sometimes when I add in the last eggs, the mixture will break or curdle. If this happens it means the butter likely hardened into tiny beads because the eggs (or your kitchen) were too cold. If this happens, you can use a hair dryer to heat up the outside of the mixer bowl and partially melt a portion of the mixture, then whip again until creamy and smooth (as in image 5).

Step 3: Whisk the dry ingredients in a separate bowl (image 6) then add them, one third at a time (image 7), alternating with the sour cream (image 8). Remember to always begin and end by adding some dry ingredients for the best results (image 9).

Step 4: Remove half of the vanilla cake batter from the mixer and set it aside in a separate bowl, then add the melted chocolate to the remainder of the batter in the mixer (image 10). Mix until evenly incorporated (image 11), then use dishers or ice cream scoops to dollop the batter in the loaf pan (image 12).

Step 5: Smooth the top of the batter (image 13) and use a palette knife or offset to swirl the two batters together (image 14). Do not overmix the two batters because you will lose the two-toned look of the classic marble cake.

Step 6: Smooth the surface of the loaf again and bake until the edges of the cake pull away from the sides (image 16) and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

For the best marble cake, use sour cream!

I like to add sour cream or other acidic dairy products (buttermilk, yogurt, acidified milk, etc.) to my cakes. Sour cream and other acid sources help to reduce gluten development when you mix the flour into the cake batter, leading to a more tender, moist cake with a softer mouthfeel. This cinnamon chocolate chip bundt cake made with sour cream is a perfect example of that. Sour cream is an acidic dairy product with roughly 14 % fat content, so it adds richness and flavour, but also reduces gluten formation leading to a more tender, soft loaf cake. You can also use cake flour (or a lower protein wheat flour) instead of all-purpose flour for a more tender, lighter crumb. The lower protein content will also contribute less gluten to the cake.

Serving Suggestions

Serve this sour cream marble cake with vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream (or both!).

Want to dress it up? Try a frosting for your marble cake, like this milk chocolate frosting or this chocolate ganache made with sour cream (a half-batch will suffice)!

Marble Cake FAQs

Other Loaf Cakes to Try

I love to make loaf cakes on the weekend to serve during the week for breakfast and snacks. Here are a few others to try:

If you tried this recipe for the best marble cake with sour cream (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Marble Cake With Sour Cream

This marble pound cake has a great buttery flavour and a lovely moist texture because it's made with sour cream. The chocolate cake part is made with dark chocolate. This marble pound cake makes a lovely accompaniment to afternoon tea.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings 12 slices

Calories 352kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Loaf pan
• Braun mixer
• Cake tester

Ingredients

• 113 grams dark chocolate (70 % cocoa content) melted
• 250 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 6.25 mL baking powder
• 1.25 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 173 grams unsalted butter room temperature
• 200 grams granulated sugar
• 4 large egg(s) room temperature
• 10 mL pure vanilla extract
• 160 mL sour cream (14% fat)

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 325°F (165 °C). Brush a 9×5-inch (23x12.5 cm) loaf pan with melted butter, then dust with flour, tapping out the excess. Set aside for later. For the loaf pan, I recommend either the Oxo Good Grips Non-stick Pro loaf cake pan (available on Amazon) or the Nordic Ware Aluminum 1-pound Commercial loaf pan (available on Amazon).
• Heat the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water on the stove. Stir occasionally until melted. Set aside to cool slightly.
• Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside for later.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and the sugar until it is light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix again.
• Add the sifted dry ingredients to the batter, alternating with the sour cream, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.
• Scoop half the vanilla batter into a medium bowl, then mix the melted chocolate into the remainder of the batter in the mixer bowl.
• Dollop the vanilla and chocolate batters into the prepared pan and swirl them a little with a knife.
• Bake the loaf until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean and the edges of the cake pull away from the sides of the pan. This takes about 70 minutes.
• Let the loaf cool for about 15 minutes before unmolding it onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• Use dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa that isn't too sweet. I recommend Cacao Barry Ocoa chocolate, which is a 70% dark chocolate that is sold in 1 kilo resealable bags in IGA grocery stores in Quebec and online at Vanilla Food Company.
• Yogurt substitution for sour cream—If you want to make this recipe, but you don't have any sour cream, you can still make this marble loaf cake with crème fraîche (if you can find it) or Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. Preferably, go for Greek yogurt with a higher percentage of fat (9 % fat, if not more), though this recipe would also work out with lower fatGreek yogurt. Opt for an unflavoured plain Greek yogurt, as opposed to vanilla yogurt, if possible.
• Chocolate orange flavour marble cake—to do this, add orange zest either:
  • at the very beginning of the recipe when you cream together the butter and sugar. In this way, both the chocolate and vanilla cakes would be flavoured with orange OR
  • to only half the vanilla batter. This way, only the vanilla portion of the marble cake will have an orange flavour. So, when you split the vanilla cake batter in two: add melted chocolate to one half of the cake batter, and add orange zest to the other half of the cake batter.
• For the cake pan, I have two recommendations of pans that I like to use:
  • Oxo Good Grips Non-stick Pro loaf cake pan (available on Amazon)
  • Nordic Ware Aluminum 1 pound Commercial loaf pan (available on Amazon)
• Storage: This marble cake can be frozen whole, wrapped tightly with plastic wrap, and then a layer of aluminum foil to better protect it. The day before serving, defrost the marble cake in the fridge, then let it come to room temperature before you slice and serve it. You can also freeze this marble cake sliced so that you can defrost individual pieces, either by staggering the pieces all wrapped together so that they can easily be separated when frozen OR individually wrapping each slice before freezing.

Nutrition

Calories: 352kcal | Carbohydrates: 38g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 19g | Saturated Fat: 11g | Cholesterol: 92mg | Sodium: 84mg | Potassium: 185mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 19g | Vitamin A: 525IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 59mg | Iron: 2.4mg

The post Marble Cake With Sour Cream appeared first on The Bake School.

I have been on the quest for the perfect pumpkin cranberry bread for a while. So many tests went into this recipe, even though, in the end, the recipe is very easy, straightforward, and downright simple. This moist pumpkin bread incorporates as much pumpkin as possible, without compromising the baking time and the texture/crumb of the final loaf! I've also written out what you can do differently next time you make a pumpkin bread to improve your loaf cakes!

If you love to bake with pumpkin, order your copy of the e-book All About Pumpkin so you can celebrate this star ingredient!

Ingredients

• flour—I tested this recipe with bleached all-purpose flour
• leavening agents—you will need both chemical leavening agents, baking powder and baking soda for this recipe. Please read about baking soda versus baking powder if you aren't sure the difference!
• spices—pumpkin pie spice mix works great here or a combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves
• salt: preferably Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but if you are using regular table salt, halve the amount so the cake isn't too salty.
• oil—using canola oil enhances the vegetal flavour of the pumpkin
• sugar—you can use either granulated sugar or brown sugar. Brown sugar will give the pumpkin bread more flavour
• eggs, specifically large eggs
• pure vanilla extract, either homemade or store-bought
• pumpkin purée, either canned or strained homemade pumpkin purée to remove excess water. Read about homemade pumpkin purée if you are unsure about how to remove the water and why
• cranberries—I prefer to bake this pumpkin cake with dried cranberries

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

• Sugar: I've baked this recipe with all granulated sugar and a combination of light brown sugar and granulated sugar. Both work. If you are using a liquid sugar, like maple syrup, your batter might be wetter so you might have to either use less: replace only a portion of the sugar with maple syrup to avoid adding too much liquid to the recipe and throwing off the texture, or add a little more flour (this may require additional tests). If you want to try this recipe with honey, be careful: honey will lead to a darker quick bread and more browning
• Oil: replace the 125 mL (½ cup) of canola oil in the recipe with the same volume of another oil (perhaps a light-tasting olive oil or sunflower oil!) or you could replace the oil with the same amount or up to 170 mL (⅔ cup) of unsalted butter, melted and cooled before incorporating in the recipe. You would consider adding a little more butter than oil to the recipe because butter is only 80 % fat, whereas vegetable oils are 100 % fat. So to keep the amount of fat constant, you'd need slightly more butter than oil. 
• Cranberries: use dried cranberries, not fresh or frozen because the latter may lead to gummy areas around the fruit from the excess moisture. Not the end of the world, but not ideal. You can replace them with raisins or chocolate chips (same volume), or even chopped nuts like walnuts or pecans!

How to Make Pumpkin Bread with Cranberries

Step 1: Whisk the dry ingredients in a medium bowl (image 1) and whisk the wet ingredients in a separate large bowl (image 2). I like to use a Danish dough whisk but a balloon whisk will also work.

Step 2: Pour the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients (image 3) and stir them until just incorporated (image 4). Add the flour-coated dried cranberries to the pumpkin cake batter (image 5) and fold them in.

Tip: Don't overmix the cake batter because it may create a dry cake that may have bigger bubbles. Undermix the mixture of dry and wet ingredients before adding the cranberries. When you stir in the cranberries, you will finish mixing the batter!

Step 3: Transfer the pumpkin cranberry cake batter to a buttered and floured loaf pan lined with parchment paper on the bottom (image 6). Bake until the edges begin to pull away from the sides and a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean (try not to poke it through a cranberry which could skew the test!). Cool the cake 10–20 minutes to firm up before transferring onto a wire rack to completely before cutting and serving (image 7). It takes about 3 hours for pumpkin loaf cake to cool down completely.

Top Baking Tip

Be sure to toss fruit in flour to coat them, in this case, dried cranberries. The flour coating will anchor the cranberries in the batter and prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake.

You can strain off any extra flour by sifting the flour-coated cranberries in a fine-mesh sieve, which will remove any excess.

Pumpkin Cranberry Cake FAQs

Don't forget to save the seeds if you make your own pumpkin purée to bake with so that you can snack on toasted pumpkin seeds later. As for the canned pumpkin, my brands of choice are E.D. Smith in Canada and Libby's in the US. Both of these work well in this recipe and the canned pumpkin isn't watery or wet, which is perfect for making this recipe.

Other Pumpkin Bread Recipes

For other versions of pumpkin bread, try these:

• Classic pumpkin loaf cake, plain and simple
• Maple pumpkin bread
• Whole wheat pumpkin bread with cream cheese frosting
• Healthier pumpkin bread, made without eggs or dairy so it's dairy-free and vegan-friendly!

If you tried this recipe for the best cranberry pumpkin bread (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

This pumpkin cranberry bread has a great texture: moist on the inside with a great crust. It's lightly spiced and slices well, without being too delicate. This recipe works with canola oil or melted butter.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Calories 299kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Loaf pan
• OXO balloon whisk
• GIR spatula
• Cake tester

Ingredients

• 250 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 5 mL baking powder
• 5 mL baking soda
• 5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 5 mL ground cinnamon
• 2.5 mL ground ginger
• 1.25 mL ground nutmeg
• 0.625 mL ground cloves
• 375 mL pumpkin purée or strained homemade pumpkin purée
• 125 mL canola oil
• 150 grams granulated sugar
• 100 grams light brown sugar
• 2 large egg(s)
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 100 grams dried cranberries tossed in 5 mL (1 tsp) of flour to coat the berries

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175 °C). Butter and flour a 1-pound loaf pan, either a 9x5-inch (23x12.5x7.5 cm) loaf pan (like this Nordic Ware pan on Amazon) or for a taller loaf, use an 8.5x4.5-inch (21.5x11.5x7 cm) loaf pan (like this Oxo pan on Amazon). Line the bottom with a rectangle of parchment. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Set aside.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin purée, oil, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
• Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients. Stir the ingredients just to combine them. Don't over mix. Fold in the flour-coated dried cranberries. 
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it out. Bang the pan on the counter to help remove any air pockets.
• Bake the pumpkin cake until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. This takes about 1 hour 15 minutes. Keep checking it every so often after an hour of baking.
• Place the pan of baked pumpkin bread on a cooling rack and let it cool for 15 minutes before unmolding it on the rack to cool completely.

Notes

• Most canned pumpkin purées are pretty dry, but some are watery. To be sure you aren't adding excess liquid to this pumpkin cake recipe, strain the pumpkin before measuring it. To do so:
  • Set a strainer over a deep bowl and line it with a couple layers of cheesecloth.
  • Place the pumpkin in the lined strainer and let drain for at least 30 minutes.
  • Occasionally, give the pumpkin a stir, a press, or a squeeze to help remove any excess liquid.
  • Once the pumpkin is thicker and less watery, you are ready to measure out the cup for this recipe.
• If you are using defrosted pumpkin purée, you may notice the water will separate upon defrosting. Again, this is a good reason to strain it before using.
• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• The baking times suggested are for a cake baked in a light coloured 9x5 inch loaf pan like this one on Amazon made by Nordic Ware. I have also tested the recipe in the OXO loaf pan from Amazon with similar results, yielding a taller loaf cake.

Nutrition

Calories: 299kcal | Carbohydrates: 47g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 27mg | Sodium: 291mg | Potassium: 153mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 27g | Vitamin A: 4903IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 44mg | Iron: 2mg

The post Best Pumpkin Bread with Cranberries appeared first on The Bake School.

This spiced pumpkin loaf cake is an easy pumpkin bread recipe to make with canned pumpkin, flavoured with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, yielding a perfect moist pumpkin bread for fall baking. It's made with canola oil but you can use butter instead. Feel free to add dried cranberries to this recipe. 

If you love to bake with pumpkin, order your copy of the e-book All About Pumpkin so you can celebrate this star ingredient so you can go beyond the classic loaf cake!

Ingredients

• flour—I tested this recipe with bleached all-purpose flour
• leavening agents—you will need both chemical leavening agents, baking powder and baking soda for this recipe. Please read about baking soda versus baking powder if you aren't sure the difference!
• spices—pumpkin pie spice mix works great here or a combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves
• salt: preferably Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but if you are using regular table salt, halve the amount so the cake isn't too salty.
• oil—using canola oil enhances the vegetal flavour of the pumpkin
• sugar—you can use either granulated sugar or brown sugar. Brown sugar will give the pumpkin bread more flavour
• eggs, specifically large eggs
• pure vanilla extract, either homemade or store-bought
• pumpkin purée, either canned or strained homemade pumpkin purée to remove excess water. Read about homemade pumpkin purée if you are unsure about how to remove the water and why

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Substitutions and Variations

With a simple recipe like this one, your options for making substitutions are limited. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind, depending on what you want to make:

• Flour - instead of regular bleached all-purpose flour, you can use whole wheat flour but make sure it's a whole wheat all-purpose flour (and not a whole grain flour for making bread!) —check out this whole wheat pumpkin bread for inspiration
• Butter - you can replace the canola oil (or another neutral-tasting vegetable oil) in the cake recipe with butter. Use the same volume
• Eggs— if you'd like to bake pumpkin bread without the eggs, follow this healthier pumpkin bread, which has no eggs and less sugar and oil too and is vegan!
• Spices - you can use a combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves or pumpkin spice mix. Apple pie spices would also work
• Cranberries, raisins, or crystallized ginger - if you'd like to incorporate dried fruit in this recipe, I recommend raisins, dried cranberries (stick to dried cranberries, otherwise with fresh or frozen cranberries, you will get some gumminess around the baked fruit, which I find unpleasant), or even chopped crystalized ginger would be great in this pumpkin cake recipe—check out this cranberry pumpkin loaf
• Chocolate chip—you can easily stir a cup (175 grams) of chocolate chips into the batter before transferring it to the pan to make chocolate chip pumpkin bread.

After years of testing and improving on that base recipe, the recipe you see here looks nothing like the original because it has more pumpkin, more flour, and different amounts of chemical leaveners. This is the best version of the pumpkin bread recipe yet.

How to Make Pumpkin Bread

Sometimes the easiest recipes are hard to get right. Loaf cakes fall into this category. Most of them are made with the easiest two-bowl mixing method, just like muffins, and yet it can be a real challenge to balance the wet and the dry ingredients properly for a loaf cake. While muffins are small and have a lot of edge to them, meaning a lot of contact with the hot baking pan, loaf cakes are thick, made with a lot of batter and baked in a deep pan. This can lead to problems achieving the perfect cake crumb that's not too dense, and not wet.

Step 1: Combine the wet ingredients in a large bowl (image 1) and whisk them until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together (image 2). I like to use a Danish dough whisk.

Step 2: Pour the dry ingredients over the wet (image 3) and stir them together (image 4). Don't overmix the batter and mix just until the dry ingredients disappear.

Step 3: Transfer the pumpkin cake batter to a buttered and floured loaf pan lined with parchment on the bottom (image 5) and use a mini offset spatula to smooth out the batter from edge-to-edge. Bake until the edges begin to pull away from the pan (image 6) and a cake tester inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

You'll notice a lot of slices of pumpkin cake and banana bread in photos and in cafés and bakeries have a dark line towards the bottom of the slice: that line is a layer of "gummy" batter where the heat of the oven didn't quite reach. It's a sign that the cake is under-baked and of cake collapse where the structure of the crumb wasn't set enough before taking the cake out of the oven to cool.

Tip: Let the cake cool in the pan for 10–20 minutes until firm enough to transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Top Pumpkin Bread Baking Tips

Your pumpkin bread will take over an hour to bake. Be patient: pumpkin is considered a "heavy" ingredient that can weigh down the batter. More pumpkin means it takes more time to evaporate/dry the crumb of the cake and set the structure. You don't want to end up with a gummy unbaked layer at the bottom of the loaf. Some people are okay with that, but to me, that is unacceptable.

Remember to use a few methods to check if your cake is done baking before you remove it from the oven. Otherwise, if the crumb is even a little under-baked, you will notice cake collapse, which is most obvious when you cut into the loaf: you will see a thin line of dark dense cake. That's under-baked moist cake batter that collapsed.

Also, if you are planning on adding cranberries, use dried cranberries because fresh and frozen cranberries causes pockets of gumminess in the cake surrounding the berries. Not good. 

Pumpkin Bread FAQs

Other Pumpkin Desserts

Everybody loves baking with pumpkin in the fall months. Here are more desserts you can make with pumpkin, including pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin muffins with streusel on top, and pumpkin pie without evaporated milk:

If you tried this recipe for the best pumpkin loaf cake (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

📖 Recipe

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Pumpkin Loaf Cake

This pumpkin bread has a great texture: moist on the inside with a great crust. It slices well and isn't overly delicate. This recipe works with canola oil or melted butter. You can also add dried cranberries (tossed in a spoonful of flour to coat them) for a fantastic pumpkin bread with cranberries.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings 10

Calories 328kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Loaf pan
• Danish dough whisk
• GIR spatula
• Mini offset
• Cake tester

Ingredients

• 250 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 5 mL baking powder
• 5 mL baking soda
• 5 mL ground cinnamon
• 5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 2.5 mL ground ginger
• 1.25 mL ground cloves
• 1.25 mL ground nutmeg
• 375 mL pumpkin purée or strained homemade pumpkin purée
• 150 grams light brown sugar
• 100 grams granulated sugar
• 125 mL canola oil
• 2 large egg(s)
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175 °C). Butter and flour a 1-pound loaf pan, either a 9x5-inch (23x12.5 cm) loaf pan (like this Nordic Ware pan on Amazon) or for a taller loaf, use an 8.5x4.5-inch (21.5x11.5 cm) loaf pan (like this Oxo pan on Amazon). Line the bottom with a rectangle of parchment. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin purée, brown sugar, granulated sugar, canola oil, eggs, and vanilla.
• Pour the dry mixture over the wet ingredients. Fold the ingredients with about 16-20 stirs just to combine them.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it out. Bang the pan on the counter to help remove any air pockets.
• Bake the pumpkin cake until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. This takes about 1 hour 15 minutes. Keep checking it every so often.
• Place the pan of baked pumpkin bread on a cooling rack and let it cool for 15 minutes before unmolding it on the rack to cool completely.

Notes

•  Recipe substitutions and variations:
  • Flour - instead of regular bleached all-purpose flour, you can use whole wheat flour but make sure it's a whole wheat all-purpose flour (and not a whole grain flour for making bread!) —check out this whole wheat pumpkin bread for inspiration
  • Butter - you can replace the canola oil (or another neutral-tasting vegetable oil) in the cake recipe with butter. Use the same volume
  • Eggs— if you'd like to bake pumpkin bread without the eggs, follow this healthier pumpkin bread, which has no eggs and less sugar and oil too and is vegan!
  • Spices - you can use a combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves or pumpkin spice mix. Apple pie spices would also work
  • Cranberries, raisins, or crystallized ginger - if you'd like to incorporate dried fruit in this recipe, I recommend raisins, dried cranberries (stick to dried cranberries, otherwise with fresh or frozen cranberries, you will get some gumminess around the baked fruit, which I find unpleasant), or even chopped crystalized ginger would be great in this pumpkin cake recipe—check out this cranberry pumpkin loaf
  • Chocolate chip—you can easily stir a cup (175 grams) of chocolate chips into the batter before transferring it to the pan to make chocolate chip pumpkin bread.
  • Salt—This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• Most canned pumpkin purées are pretty dry, but some are watery. To be sure you aren't adding excess liquid to this pumpkin cake recipe, strain the pumpkin before measuring it. To do so:
  • Set a strainer over a deep bowl and line it with a couple layers of cheesecloth.
  • Place the pumpkin in the lined strainer and let drain for at least 30 minutes.
  • Occasionally, give the pumpkin a stir, a press, or a squeeze to help remove any excess liquid.
  • Once the pumpkin is thicker and less watery, you are ready to measure out the cup for this recipe.
• If you are using defrosted pumpkin purée, you may notice the water will separate upon defrosting. Again, this is a good reason to strain it before using.
• The baking times suggested are for a cake baked in the OXO loaf pan from Amazon with similar results, yielding a taller loaf cake.

Nutrition

Calories: 328kcal | Carbohydrates: 48g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 14g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 33mg | Sodium: 351mg | Potassium: 187mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 26g | Vitamin A: 5884IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 58mg | Iron: 2mg

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