Wildflower Chocolate Cake
One of the most delicious spring treats, chocolate cake with wildflowers, specifically flowering currant in my area (Vancouver, BC). Ribes sanguineum is one of the most fragrant sweet, sage like blossom and is great in sweet as well as savoury cooking. This recipe is so quick and easy it will boggle your mind. Substitute fresh rosemary if you don’t have time to pick the flowers:)
Ingredients
1 cup Stout or Porter beer
1 cup butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
2/3 cups yogurt or sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3 tsp flowering currant blossoms or rose petals (use fresh rosemary instead if you don’t have these)
Foraging for wild currant blossoms
Look for a gorgeous pink flowering coastal shrub.
Shrub: 1-3m tall, crocked stems and reddish bark.
Leaves: Alternate, 3-5 lobed, maple like slightly velvety to touch
Flowers: Pink drooping clusters of 10-20 small flowers
Where to find it: Dry to moist, open forests and openings at low to mid elevations in southern BC
Remember to make 100% sure of any wild plant identification before harvesting! Take our virtual foraging trip as a good starting point. INFO HERE
Cake Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter a 9-inch spring-form pan
Pour stout into a saucepan over medium heat. Add and melt butter. Remove from heat, whisk in cocoa powder and sugar.
Combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl and beat until uniform. Add sour cream mixture to stout mixture and whisk to combine.
Whisk in flour, flowers and baking soda. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out with crumbs clinging to it.
Place tin on a rack and leave to cool. Serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Sprinkle with more pink flowering currant blossoms if you like