40th birthday boy requests chocolate non-dairy cake - HELP!

[thaliablogs]

and I am on the hook. Besides commenting that he is a sad bastard, does anyone have any recipes which will be at least a little celebratory and delicious?

I suppose I could always substitute marge instead of butter, but it hurts me to do so...

oh yes oh yes oh yes!

Sue Lawrence - divine baking - has a recipe for surprise chocolate cake and teh surprise is it contains a whole jaor of mayonnaise. Which, after all, is oil and eggs.

I have made it. It was lovely. I made her coca cola icing to go on top.

I can look it up if you want

that would be fantastic, thank you!

ok

9oz sr flour, sifted
1.75oz cocoa powder
quart tsp baking powder
7oz golden casater sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
7oz mayo (full fat hellman's recommended)
1 med egg

Oven 180/gas 4

Put all dry in=gredients in bowl.Add vanilla, 5floz cold water, mayo and egg. Beat till smooth.

Bake for about 30 mins.

When cool she suggests fudge frosting. We loved her coca cola one

You could use any normal chocolate cake recipe and substitute the butter for a dairy free spread (like Pure). Most recipes usually ask for either cocoa powder, or dark chocolate which both contain no dairy anyway

I don't have one to hand but there are quite a few cake recipes which use oil instead of butter.

Any cake will be delicious if you coat it in melted chocolate. Is even a little cream to fudgify it banned?

Yes, any dairy banned. It's my brother and he's had IBS type problems and some holistic practitioner told him no dairy to fix this. He's been quite ill so I know I should be sympathetic but I am allergic to this kind of advice...

Stirling, that was what my mother was suggesting but something just doesn't feel right about cooking with marge instead of butter. Not to mention what I'm supposed to do for icing.

Thank you dogofpoints, that sounds quite intriguing. will let you know how it goes. Do you have the icing recipe too?

Yep. It's a lovely dribbly fudgey icing:

Ah. Hang on. It's got butter in it . Hard luck. Melted dark choc then, dairy free.

Or Sue Lawrence also has another choc cake recipe where she makes a meringue topping which does look nice. It is just 3 large egg whites, quarter tsp cream of tartar and 5oz goldern caster. When whisked thick and shiny she pours the meringue over the cake mixture tins (2 of them, still unbaked) and bakes in a gas 3/170 oven for 20 mins till meringue golden.

Then you have one cake meringue side up (when cooked), you could then pour some melted choc on top (sue has a lemony curdy creamy filling), then she places the other cake meringue side up on top of that.

Looks lovely and interesting. I might try that myself one day soon.

I have made the mayonnaise cake myself, by the way, and we all enjoyed it. dd2 wants one for her birthday. It wasn;t really any different to a normal butter cake. I can recommend it.

I use the dairy free spread alot as my dd is allergic to dairy and egg and the cakes/flapjacks/cookies taste fine to me If you use really good chocolate, the taste of the dairy free spread is irrelevant.

An idea for the icing is - melt a 100g bar of dark chocolate (dairy free of course) add a couple of tbspn of golden syrup. Mix it together and cover the cake. It will set and be a bit sweeter than just using plain choc - I do this for my dd's cake too!

We make Sue Lawrences chocolate surprise (mayo) cake also and it is very good.

carrot cake made with oil is delicious

she is a baking genius, isn't she, mountain?

ooh have never heard of this susan lawrence!? she sounds nigella-esque!

could it be true 2 nigellas?!?!

sorry i realise this helped no-one i just quite like the sound of her!

what kind of other recipies does she do?

milk

x

SHe is most definitely not nigella-esque (she sticks in my craw ). Sue is a good cook for starters.

This is the book I have and it is marvellous