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Chocolate Cake Variant

Benjamin_36199

long time listener, first time caller...

Heard an office mate talking about caramelized onion chocolate cake and it got me thinking. Why couldn't I try substituting a caramelized onion puree into my chocolate cake recipe to replace a portion of the sugar content? might be interesting. Looking for feedback/experiences using caramelized onions in baking. to be clear, I am not against sugar. Serious carbivour here. Simply looking to explore a bit. any thoughts?

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fisher23

It would be more savory and dense. Not a bad thing at all, it just depends on what you want the final product to be.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Alternatively you could make a sweet onion water and use that to replace part of the base. Take a sugary onion (like Vidalia) and slice a bunch of them very thin on a mandoline. Then add a dash of salt, vacuum seal, and cook at 90C for 90 hours. Then open, strain, and get your onion-water on.

On a related note, this stuff makes a great base for a fluid gel. And if you mix it with demiglace, you'll have the most insane liquid phase for french onion soup (though you'd want to use less sweet onions for this application).

seijoed

Oh, that's an awesome soup idea.

tshewman

chocolate onion soup? :-)

tshewman

A puree would likely make the cake much more dense. Given the sugar dissolves that is unlikely to happen to the onions. I would lean a little closer to what @Brandon Byrd suggested, but add it in two different ways (and possible a 3rd) if you want to maintain a traditional chocolate cake texture (which I assume is a goal). First, caramelize your onions (I would lean on the "lots" side if you really want this to come through ~1000g. Take 1/2 of them and combine them with the milk (I assume you're going to use some form of milk-doesn't matter what kind). Consider using a little extra milk for the amount you will lose when you strain it. Simmer over heat for ~5 minutes and allow to steep over night. Meanwhile, chop up the butter (again, assuming you're going to use butter in the icing) into cubes and take the other 1/2 of the onions bring them up to a low-med heat, turn the heat off and start putting the butter in cube by cube (like making a beurre monte) so it remains emulsified. Allow to infuse for ~20 minutes or so. Strain (the butter should still be stable but will carry with it the caramelized flavor). Blend the milk and onions and strain through a fine sieve. Now use the milk in the cake batter and the butter in the icing.

If you want to add a crunch, you could finish with some pan fried onions until crisp (then maybe dehydrate for a couple hours) and sprinkle these over the top and maybe on the sides. That's probably where I would start. Let us know what you do and how it turns out.

fisher23

@Brandon_Byrd_40557 Great idea, I love onion soup. I'm going to make up a bunch when the Walla Walla Sweets are in season and freeze it.

Shivam_Daryanani_92859

90 hours?

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Sounds like a long time, is a long time. But it takes that long to get the sugars caramelized enough. It could probably go a bit faster at 95C, but you're getting tons of evaporation in the bath already so keep an eye on your water levels. It sounds fussy because the time is so long, but it requires basically zero effort after it's in the bath (beyond topping off the water every once in a while).

Shivam_Daryanani_92859

Thanks to you I have a boat ton of onions going in. Excited to see the result.

Question, is this an idea you came up yourself or did you read it somewhere?