Pendragon Cake

Posted January 28, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 13 Comments

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Full disclosure: this cake pan was the whole reason I got the idea to do a King Arthur menu to begin with. I saw it on ThinkGeek several months ago, and it immediately went on my Christmas list. I’m pretty sure it was designed to appeal to the Game of Thrones crowd, but I couldn’t help thinking it’d be just right for a King Arthur dessert. The cake recipe itself is a chocolate pound cake from BHG. It was perfect for getting the pan’s little details to stand out! I decorated mine with raspberries, mint, and whipped cream, but you can decorate yours however you want. You’re king (or queen) of your kitchen! 😉

 

Pendragon Cake

“One have I seen–that other, our liege lord,
The dread Pendragon, Britain’s King of kings,
Of whom the people talk mysteriously,
He will be there–then were I stricken blind
That minute, I might say that I had seen. ”
— Lancelot and Elaine

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INGREDIENTS:

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  • 3 cups flour
  • 2 1/4 cups sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 6 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
  • 2 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 cup softened butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • For the Decorations: raspberries, mint leaves, and Cool Whip. I used 10 berries and 20 mint leaves to decorate the plated cake. You’ll probably get more than 10 pieces out of the cake depending on how big you cut it, so I recommend having extra berries and mint on hand for those pieces. In fact, I got generous and started adding 3 berries to each piece. The more the merrier! 🙂


Makes approx. 12 servings

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

    1. Preheat your oven to 350°. Melt your chocolate either in a double boiler or in a microwave. Allow it to cool.
    2. While you wait, grease and flour your pan. This step is VERY important, so take your time. Spread a thin layer of vegetable shortening into every nook and cranny inside the pan, leaving no spot ungreased. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of flour into the pan and shake it around, rotating the pan to spread the flour evenly throughout. Repeat the sprinkling, shaking, and rotating until it’s completely coated with flour. Overturn your pan into the sink and tap the sides and top with a spoon to dislodge any excess flour. When you turn it back over, the inside of the pan should be completely coated with a thin layer of flour. If you missed any areas in the greasing stage, they’ll be visible now. Apply a tiny amount of shortening  to any bare areas with a toothpick and sprinkle on a little extra flour, tapping out the excess.

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      I know this seems excessive, but trust me. The details are what make this cake special, so you want them to stand out as much as possible. My experience has been that greasing this particular pan with cooking spray doesn’t give crisp details, and leaving bare spots after greasing and flouring results in bits of cake sticking to the inside later.
    3. Combine your flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. When the chocolate is cool, add it to the bowl along with the milk and butter. Beat with an electric mixer on low-medium speed until combined. Continue to beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add the eggs, vanilla and almond extract. Beat for 2 more minutes.
    4. Transfer the batter to the dragon pan. Break up any large air bubbles in the batter by cutting a zigzag pattern through it with a knife. Be careful not to let the knife scrape the bottom of the pan, since this can disrupt the grease layer.

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      Removing air bubbles is particularly important with pound cakes because of how much they rise. As you can see from the picture, the pan is filled almost to the brim. If large air bubbles aren’t broken, the batter could rise unevenly and spill out of the pan on one side.
    5. Put your pan on a baking sheet to keep it steady and place it in the oven. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. It’s possible that the bottom of the cake (the part exposed to the oven’s heat), will start to overcook before the center is finished. If it’s starting to look too brown, fold a piece of tinfoil loosely around the exposed area.
    6. Remove the pan and baking sheet from the oven and place them on a wire rack. Allow the cake to cool for 20 minutes.
    7. To remove the cake from the pan, first take the baking sheet out from under the pan. Overturn the baking sheet and hold it firmly over the bottom of the cake. Keeping a firm grip on both the cake pan and the baking sheet, flip them over so that the cake pan is right-side-up with the sheet underneath it. Gently slide the pan from the cake (it should come off without any sticking). If the pan and sheet are still too hot to hold firmly, complete this step using oven mitts.

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      Ta-da! Beauty!
    8. When the cake is cool to the touch, you can decorate however you want. I wanted to preserve the effect of the details, so I decided not to use icing. The cake can be a little plain on its own, though, so I topped it with Cool Whip, raspberries, and mint leaves.
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    9. Serve to a round table full of the land’s greatest knights.

13 responses to “Pendragon Cake

  1. ladyelasa

    This is such a cool cake! The pan is awesome and the raspberries look like little dragon eggs. ^ ^

    storitorigrace.blogspot.com

    • The issue here would depend on when the chocolate seized. If it seized after being heated and before being added to the other ingredients, then it was probably overheated. Heating slowly and gently with frequent checking is best. If it seized after being added to the other ingredients, it may not have been cool enough (if the difference in temperature between the chocolate and milk is too great, it can cause seizing). Maybe the chocolate needed more time to cool. However, if you’ve been having super hot weather like I have lately, it’s possible that the kitchen was just too hot to allow the chocolate’s temperature to drop enough. In that case, you may want to let the milk set out for a bit and come to room temperature before adding the chocolate and milk to the mix.

    • Unfortunately I’m planning on using it for a birthday party, but I did a little research to see if I could find another option for you. It looks like it was an exclusive product from ThinkGeek, which is effectively closed (they only sell a few things through the Game Stop website now). I’ve found a few alternatives:

      Ebay (Pricey but at least it’s an option)

      Betty’s Bakeware (Apparently it’s cheaper here, but I’ve never heard of the site or bought anything from them so I can’t vouch for their legitimacy.)

      Fiction-Food Cafe (Diana, the blogger from this site, used the same pan for a recipe. Maybe she’d be willing to part with it?)

      I hope you find an option that works for you!

  2. Jenny

    I know it’s a few years later, but I found your recipe a few months ago when trying to use my pan (having lost the insert with instructions a while ago), and just wanted to thank you for posting it! I made a few small changes to turn it into a spice cake and it came out perfectly! My changes were just to swap the chocolate out for a hint of powdered cocoa (for color), nutmeg, cinnamon, and a hint of allspice. Also, I may or may not have added the almond extract. I checked back to reference your amazing recipe as i’m planning on making it again tomorrow for a final Dungeons & Dragons session, and thought i’d post to thank you!

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