Chocolate Pecan Cake With Tropical Fruit Custard Sauce Recipes

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE WITH CUSTARD SAUCE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325°. Grease and flour a 10-in. plain or fluted tube pan. In another bowl, beat sugar, oil and butter until well blended. Gradually beat in buttermilk, eggs and vanilla., In another bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves; gradually beat into sugar mixture. Stir in zucchini, chocolate chips and almonds., Transfer to prepared pan. Bake 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool., For sauce, in a large saucepan, mix sugar, flour and cornstarch. Whisk in milk. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat to low; cook and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat., In a small bowl, whisk a small amount of hot mixture into egg yolks; return all to pan, whisking constantly. Bring to a gentle boil; cook and stir 2 minutes. Gently stir in butter and extract. Serve warm with cake. Cover and refrigerate leftover sauce.

OLD SOUTHERN CHOCOLATE PECAN SHEET CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease bottom and sides of a 9x13-inch pan.
• Mix 2 cups white sugar, flour, and salt in a mixing bowl.
• Combine water, vegetable shortening, margarine, and 3 tablespoons cocoa powder in a saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently. Pour liquid into flour mixture and stir well. Return saucepan to stove and set it aside.
• Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk in a large liquid measuring cup and stir in eggs and vanilla extract. Pour egg mixture into cake batter and mix until fully combined. Transfer batter into the prepared pan.
• Bake the cake in preheated oven until cake springs back when touched lightly with a finger or a tester comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
• While cake is baking, prepare icing using reserved saucepan. Combine confectioners' sugar, 3 tablespoons cocoa powder, butter, milk, vanilla, and pecans in saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat until hot but not boiling. Pour icing over hot cake immediately after it comes out of the oven. Allow cake to cool completely on a wire rack.

CHOCOLATE-PECAN CAKE WITH TROPICAL-FRUIT CUSTARD SAUCE

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Butter the inside of a nine-inch cake pan. Place a round of parchment or waxed paper, cut to fit, in the bottom of the pan. Butter the round of paper. Add about one tablespoon of flour to the buttered pan and shake it around to coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Shake out excess.
• Combine the cream and four tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. When the mixture simmers, add all the chocolate and stir around the bottom and sides until melted. Remove from the heat and let stand.
• Break the eggs into a heat-proof earthenware or metal mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar and vanilla. Place the bowl over - not in - a basin of simmering water, beating the mixture vigorously with a wire whisk.
• After about one minute, when the eggs are warm and not overly heated, remove the bowl from the basin and beat with an electric mixer.
• Continue beating until the mixture is tripled in volume and reaches room temperature, about 7 to 10 minutes.
• Scrape about one-third of the chocolate mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add about one-third of the egg mixture and blend well with a spatula. Add the remaining egg mixture and fold it in. Fold in the remaining chocolate mixture and stir in the pecans.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth over the top.
• Place the cake pan in a larger pan and pour boiling water around the cake pan. Place in the oven and bake 45 to 50 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Remove the cake from the oven and let it sit in the water bath about 30 minutes. Remove the cake from the water bath and wipe off the bottom of the pan. Invert the cake onto a platter, remove the round of paper and let stand to room temperature. Serve with tropical-fruit custard sauce.

CHOCOLATE PECAN PRALINE CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325.
• In a small heavy saucepan, cook the butter, whipping cream and brown sugar over low heat, stirring occasionally, just until butter is melted. Divide evenly into two 9" cake pans. Spread this mixture over the bottom of pans and sprinkle liberally with ½ cup pecans in each.
• In a large bowl, combine cake mix, oil, water & eggs at low speed until moistened; then beat 2 minutes at high speed. Divide evenly into the two cake pans by carefully spooning batter over pecans around edges of pan and then over the center area.
• Bake 50-60 minutes or until ice pick inserted in the center tests clean.
• Cool 5 minutes only. Then cover each pan with wax paper and invert onto wire racks to finish cooling. Determine which cake layer will be the top layer and add as many additional chopped pecans as desired to make topping lush and attractive looking.
• When completely cooled, with both hands, carefully lift up the layer of cake to be the bottom layer and remove the waxed paper. Place on a serving/cake platter.
• Spread frosting over the top of the pecans, filling in all the spaces around the bottom layer. Repeat procedure to place top layer of cake on the bottom layer, except DO NOT frost the top. Frost the sides only.
• Then melt chocolate morsels with about a teaspoon of vegetable oil to a consistency that you can drizzle back and forth across the top of the cake to give it a finished look. You can do this by putting the chocolate chips and oil in a small Ziploc bag and placing the sealed bag in a pan or dish of hot water for a few minutes until chips are melted. Lift bag from water and dry off. Then compress the contents together with your fingers until well blended. Snip off a very small corner and the bottom of the bag and allow glaze to drizzle out while moving bag across top of the cake.

TROPICAL-FRUIT CUSTARD SAUCE

Steps:

• Peel the mangoes or papayas and discard the skins. The flesh should be quite soft. Put the flesh into a food mill and turn the handle to strain the pulp. Discard the seeds. There should be slightly more than one cup of pulp. Put the pulp into the container of a food processor and blend thoroughly. Set aside.
• Put the milk into a saucepan and add the vanilla. Bring to the boil and remove from heat.
• Put the yolks in a mixing bowl and add the sugar. Beat rapidly with a wire whisk or electric mixer. Beat until light and fluffy. Gradually add the hot milk, beating vigorously. Pour this mixture into a saucepan and continue beating. Cook over low to medium heat (it is best if a heat pad is used) beating constantly. Cook the sauce, stirring, until it reaches 185 degrees on a candy thermometer or until it coats a wooden spoon. It must be thickened and custardlike.
• Meanwhile, prepare a bowl of ice and set the saucepan in it.
• Stir occasionally, until cooled. Stir in the cream or creme fraiche and the mango or papaya puree. Serve with chocolate-pecan cake.