Once again my daughter is far away at a camp in the woods of the lower peninsula of Michigan for the summer and I want to mail her a birthday cake. Something special but also something that will make it through the mail intact. I browsed the internet for possibilities. Cupcakes were frequent suggestions and also petit fours with a fondant icing. But I want to mail a cake; and settled on a dense chocolate cake. For a Louisiana twist, I added a bottle of Abida Springs root beer with cane sugar to the cake.
Abita Springs is a brewery which is located about one hour east of where we live. It has been around since at least 1994 and is quite successful. The privately owned company claims to brew “more than 151,000 barrels of beer and 9,100 barrels of root beer” a year. Its fun to purchase “local products” so we often purchase this brand of beer and have watched the enterprise grow over the years. Today we discovered they also make root beer with cane sugar. A bottle is going into the cake batter.
. Recipe
The cake is a chocolate cake which is easy to make. It is a one-bowl cake which is mixed by hand. No need to get out the electric mixer for this project.Just stir with a wooden spoon. I baked cake in a spring form pan. It is easy to remove a cake from this type of cake pan and the dense round cake, hopefully,will be good for travelling.
Looks like this cake should easily fit into a priority or next-day shipping box with room for a few presents.
To make the cake, melt the butter, cocoa and root beer on the stove.
Then remove from the stove, cool slightly and add the rest of the ingredients–sugar, eggs and flour, shown here. I used self-rising flour to really make things easy.
The cake is lumpy. It is a very dense cake — sort of like muffins. No point trying to get out all the lumps — that won’t happen when mixing the cake by hand. It will be very tough if you overmix.
I iced the cake with a chocolate glaze — butter, cocoa and chocolate, root beer and powdered sugar and a pinch of salt. The glaze hardens when cooled; don’t know what will happen when it is shipped. Should still taste good! I added a few chewy orange candies for decorations to make a festive cake — skipped the lettering on this birthday cake for this adventure. Here are the glaze ingredients.
So tomorrow the cake goes to Federal Express for shipping. The US Postal Service does not have overnight delivery to the woods in Michigan. How interesting. Hope the cake hits the spot with the campers in my daughter’s cabin. (The batter is delicious!)
The recipe for this cake is adapted from one given on the WEB site: Kitchn .https://www.thekitchn.com/surprisingly-quick-root-beer-c-121148:
Louisiana Root Beer Chocolate Birthday Cake
Ingredients for Cake:
- oil
- 12 oz bottle of Abida Springs Root Beer with Cane Sugar or similar brand, (reserve 2 Tbsp root beer for glaze)
- 1 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 2 cups sifted self-rising flour, plus additional for dusting spring form pan
Ingredients for Chocolate Glaze:
- 2 oz dark unsweetened baking chocolate
- 1/3 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 2 Tbsp reserved root beer
Method and Steps:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Oil and flour 9″ spring form pan. Set aside.
- In medium sauce pan, heat the bottle of root beer (reserve 2 Tbsp for glaze), cocoa powder and butter over medium heat. Heat and stir until the butter is melted. Remove from stove..
- Add the granulated sugar and dark brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Let cool to room temperature.
- In small bowl, whisk the eggs until blended. Add a little of the cocoa mixture to the eggs and stir, then add the eggs to the cocoa mixture in the large sauce pan. Stir until combined.
- Gradually fold in the self-rising flour and stir until combined. The mixture will be lumpy.
- Pour into prepared spring form cake pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and cool to room temperature before removing cake from spring form pan..Run knife around edges of cake pan and center ring, lift cake up and out from sides. Run knife around bottom of cake, then invert onto cake plate.
- For chocolate glaze: In small sauce pan, melt baking chocolate, cocoa powder and butter over medium heat. Stir just until the baking chocolate is melted (butter may continue to melt once off stove). Remove from heat, add salt, confectioners sugar and 1 Tbsp reserved root beer. If needed add second Tbsp root beer. Stir with wooden spoon until smooth . While glaze is still warm, pour over top of cake and let some run down sides. Smooth with knife.
- Chill cake.
