CHOCOLATE CREAM CAKE & HALVA PRALINES

2020-08-14 21:09:31

The chocolate cream cake of Vega is meant for every little chocolate lover! Whether for Children's Day or birthdays – every little chocolate eater will certainly be happy about a cake like this and there is a guaranteed brown, and funny face on family photos.

This cream cake is made of chocolate from head to toe, but the decorations are in a light shade as a contrast to the chocolate colour – except for chocolate cubes and chocolate shavings of course, which are also an important part of the cake decoration, especially for the little chocolate lovers.

It was the first time in my vegan life I had baked a chocolate cream cake, so I took the path of least resistance and baked a cocoa sponge in a similar way to the vanilla sponge for the raspberry cream cake. I prepared too much halva mass for the decoration, however, it was used to prepare halva pralines. Forgive me this little shortcoming, but I was under time pressure. The halva pralines are delicious and hopefully will make up for this.

ingredients

Ingredients for one cocoa sponge:

150 g of spelt flour type 450
90 g muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon cocoa
aquafaba from 2 jars of chickpeas
1 tablespoon of apple vinegar
2 tablespoons of rapeseed oil or other oil

Chocolate cream:

180 g (20 tablespoons) of spelt porridge
1 Litre of hazelnut milk + a little for blending
1 (100 g) dark chocolate (71% cocoa)
350 g dates
a pinch of salt

Halva decorations and pralines:

spelt porridge – 200 g of the cooked porridge for the chocolate cream
100 g tahini
150 g dates
200 g almond flour + a little to coat pralines (or cocoa)
1 tablespoon coconut oil (optional)

Additionally for garnish: chocolate cubes and chocolate shavings, blanched almond sticks, black sesame (hedgehog eyes), dried sour cherries (hedgehog nose)

recipe

Cocoa sponge

Pour spelt flour, salt, soda and baking powder into a bowl. Sift the cocoa through a strainer to get rid of lumps, pour into a bowl and stir everything precisely. Grind the muscovado sugar into powder. Then beat the aquafaba using a mixer until it is possible to turn the bowl upside down to check that the foam doesn't flow out. The aquafaba foam should be very stiff. Add one tablespoon of apple vinegar and continue mixing. Then - mixing all the time - pour slowly, carefully and in batches (1-2 tablespoons at a time) the muscovado powder into the foam and after a few minutes also the rapeseed oil. After adding these ingredients, the foam should be still stiff and shouldn't flow out when you turn the bowl upside down.

Set the oven to 180 degrees and 30 minutes of baking.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the aquafaba foam – one tablespoon at a time – and gently stir using a wooden spoon. At the end, the batter should still be fluffy, although it will have sunk a bit.

Pour the batter into a greased springform pan (19 cm in diameter) and bake for 30 minutes. You need to bake two cocoa sponges, so prepare also one more sponge. When the sponges have cooled down, cut them into halves to get four sponges for the cream cake.

Chocolate cream

Pour hot water over the dates (500 g) and soak for several minutes. Pour the hazelnut milk into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Season with salt and slowly add (1-2 tablespoons at a time) the spelt porridge. Don't worry if there are a few lumps – the mass will be blended afterwards. According to the package instructions the porridge should simmer for 15 minutes, but I cooked it for a shorter time (about 10 minutes), because I added more spelt porridge than on the package provided, with the aim of a thicker consistency. When the porridge is ready, measure off 200 g to prepare the halva decorations. Add the whole chocolate to the saucepan and stir until the chocolate is completely dissolved in the hot spelt porridge. Remove pits from the dates if necessary and add 350 g of them to the chocolate spelt porridge. Then blend everything thoroughly – add a little hazelnut milk if the mass is too thick. Divide the cream into three parts and leave a little also to spread on the top and the sides of the cake.

Halva mass

Blend the remaining 150 g of dates with cooked spelt porridge and tahini. Add the almond flour and stir thoroughly. You can also add a little coconut oil – it will make the mass less sticky. Prepare the decoration for the chocolate cream cake – e.g. a hedgehog or any other animal that your child likes, and sweet decoration balls. You can also prepare sweet pralines from the remaining halva mass. Just coat the balls in almond flour or cocoa. You can also engage children in a delicious activity – in preparing the pralines, their favourite animals, and decoration balls.

It's time to assemble the chocolate cream cake:

Place the first cocoa sponge on a serving plate and spread it with the chocolate cream. Place the second one on top and apply the cream, then put the third sponge on top and spread it with the chocolate cream. Finally place the fourth cocoa sponge and apply only a thin layer of the cream. Spread also the sides of the cake with the chocolate cream left for this purpose. Then sprinkle the sides generously with chocolate shavings. Decorate the top of the cream cake with chocolate cubes, almond sticks, halva balls and the halva animal, e.g. hedgehog with sesame eyes and nose from a sour cherry.

Tip

The chocolate cream cake should be prepared the day before, so that the cream has a proper consistency. Unfortunately, being under time pressure, I cut the cake on the day when the chocolate cream had been prepared.