Chocolate Coffeecake with White Chocolate Frangipani

Before I met my friend Ali, I had no idea how to use the recipes from my American baking books. We use a weighing scale for baking and cooking in my mom's house. There is also a measuring jug which uses both imperial and metric system. But seriously, I have never knew that you actually measure butter by the Tablespoon or Cup. I will probably never be comfortable baking with cups and tablespoon measurement like an American and will always convert everything into grams and mililiters but at least now I don't get spooked by American baking books.

I met Ali in a yahoo chat room. We both left our jobs to take care of our children full time - she a son and me a daughter. We used to chat about clothes, SHOES, pedicure, manicure, books the theatre and exchanged recipes. It was so fun to meet a kindred spirit who loves the same things I do. Ali helped me to make sense of American baking and taught me the wonder of Angel Food Cake and most importantly, coffeecakes!

I used to think coffeecakes are cakes butter cake with coffee or espresso accent like the ones we have back home. Or a mocha cake made with mocha cream and coffee flavoured chiffon. Ali opened up a new world to me, where with different toppings you can create different coffeecakes with a simple butter cake base. There is no need for icing she said because the toppings will be the decorations.

From the basic recipes she gave me, I have made different coffeecakes over the years. And I think it is a good trade off for introducing her to Milan Kundera ;-)

This one I made yesterday was really created by accident. I meant to swirl the white chocolate chips - I used white chocolate ribbons by De Ruijter - into the chocolate cake but I was distracted by a phone call. So it stayed on top of the cake with the frangipani. It gives the cake a creamier topping than usual. You can replace the cardamom with cinnamon or nutmeg but I find white chocolate and cardamom work very well together.

I baked using a 20 by 30cm cake tin. I am very happy with the texture and the structure of the cake. You could halve the recipe and bake it in a 22cm round cake tin and still get the same results.

Chocolate coffeecake with White Chocolate Frangipani

Ingredients:

250g butter

250g sugar

1/2 cup yoghurt

1/2 cup milk

300g flour

50g cocoa powder

8g baking powder

a pinch of fleur de sel

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

200g white chocolate

frangipani

100g almond - toasted then grounded

50g brown sugar - I use Billington's Dark Molasses

50g cold butter - cubed

1 TBSP cornflour

pinch of fleur de sel

3 green cardamom - crushed then toasted and the seeds grounded

Method:

1. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt. Combine the yoghurt and milk and mix till smooth.

2. Preheat the oven to 175C

3. Cream butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.

4. Add the egg one at a time and beating each well into the butter mixture.

5. Add the flour alternating with the yoghurt milk, ending with the flour.

6. Pour the cake batter into a cake tin lined with baking parchment.

7. Scatter the white chocolate chips on top of the cake.

8. Lightly combine all the frangipani ingredients with fingers or spoon until it resembles a sandy mix. This doesn't have to be so smooth or paste like.

9. Scatter the frangipani on the white chocolate and try to cover as much as you can.

10. Bake in the oven until done.