December 03, 2018

Mini Chocolate Cranberry Christmas Cakes

Festive desserts are the best kind of desserts! Today we are sharing our FAVORITE chocolate cake recipe. This cake is good all year round but to make it extra festive we decided to make them mini (because who doesn't love their own personal cake) and pair it with some delicious homemade cranberry jam. YUM! I promise this recipe is worth the wait. ENJOY!

Preparation Time : 20 mins 
Baking Time : 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours
Serves: 12 to 14 servings

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour– 2 cups
Cocoa Powder – 1/2 cup
Baking Powder – 2 tsp
Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp
Salt – 1/2 tsp
Water – 3/4 cup
Soft Unsalted Butter – 1 cup
Milk – 1/2 cup
Eggs – 4
Sugar – 2 3/4 cup
Dark Chocolate – I cup
Instant Coffee Powder – 2 tbsp.
Oil – 2 tbsp.

Coating:

100g dark chocolate
4 tbsp. rice milk
1 tbsp maple syrup
fresh or dried cranberries

Cranberry Jam:

1 cup fresh cranberries
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tsp orange zest
1 tbsp maple syrup
small cinnamon stick (optional)

 

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  2. Line the base and sides of an 8-inch round pan with parchment paper. Make sure the parchment comes above the pan, since it will rise so much.
  3. Bring water to a boil. Add in coffee, butter, dark chocolate and heat it gently till it is melted.
  4. Add in sugar and whisk well until it is completely melted. Pour this in a bowl and set aside to cool down a bit.
  5. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. 
  6. Add in milk to the chocolate mix, add in one egg at a time and whisk it well.
  7. Add in the sifted flour mix in and mix well.
  8. Pour this in the prepared pan and pop it in oven for 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours.
  9. Remove it from oven and let it cool completely.
  10. Place onto a flat surface and cut cake in half long way so you have 2 8 inch round cakes. Using a 2" round cutter carefully cut out shapes. You should end up with 11-12 shapes.
  11. Sandwich 2 together with a generous dollop of cranberry jam.
  12. To make the cranberry jam place cranberries, orange juice, maple syrup and cinnamon stick into a pot and gently heat for about 10 min until cranberries have popped and are soft. Remove the cinnamon stick and mash the cranberries with a fork until smooth.
  13. Finely chop the chocolate and place into small bowl. Gently heat the rice milk until boiling point, pour over finely chopped chocolate and stir until completely smooth. Stir in maple syrup and pour over top of each of the cakes gently smoothing out the chocolate to drip over the edge.
  14. Decorate with fresh cranberries.
  15. To make the cranberry jam place cranberries, orange juice, maple syrup and cinnamon stick into a pot and gently heat for about 10 min until cranberries have popped and are soft. Remove the cinnamon stick and mash the cranberries with a fork until smooth.

ENJOY

XOXO

Walker Edison

Written by Walker Edison