I made this Chocolate Mocha Gluten Free Cake with a Goat Cheese Filling with a Chocolate Ganache (ganache not shown) last Saturday for Rooted In Wyoming's "3rd Annual Hoe Down and Farm to Table" fundraiser (I might add, this fundraiser is charming and takes you back to the 1800s).
It was a fun cake to make; not just because it was a new recipe for me, and not just because I got to add the mocha mixture to the dry ingredients, followed by the sour cream (or in this case, plain yogurt) mixture - much like knitting with three or four different yarns (yes, at the same time).... it was fun because I got to use locally sourced ingredients. In fact, the more I could find to use, the more fun it became. My idea, originated with wanting to use cheese. At the time, I was thinking of one friend who in the past three? four? years, has started making cheese and selling it at every farmer's market available. While I'm not a huge cheese eating fan, to make your own cheese, I think is a fun art. I think that's cool. Earlier this summer, as I stopped by her tent at the Saturday Farmer's Market,
she told me of the mozzarella cheese she had made and it just "melts" in your mouth - ah.... a cheese that melts easily? And my mind just thought, "how can I work with a mild mozzarella?"
Another friend (whose homemade apple sauce would make it into this cake), suggested a different cheese, as it would "melt" easier... a ricotta ... a goat cheese. So I asked, Jamie if she ever made cheese with goat's milk, and alas, she did not. However another vendor -staple of the market, Murphy Gulch Ranch, did.
My original idea was a lemon raspberry cake, with fresh raspberries and of course the goat cheese - of course, the birds would eat the raspberries the week I needed them and life would become full of one too many activities for me to find more and I thought, "what now?"
Hmmmm... a chocolate zucchini cake just seemed so plain. Oh, I have this coffee, for my french press.... and within a short amount of time, an idea was sprung.
Once home, I found a recipe in my cookbooks and to the task I went, local vendors provided me with eggs, coffee, goat cheese, applesauce and honey. The recipe did not call for applesauce, I used that in lieu of some butter. It brought me true joy to be using ingredients locally sourced - in part because I knew the quality was there, and because I knew I was supporting a local artisan.
As it turned out, the cake never made it to the main serving table and I rescued the last piece for someone who had wanted to to try it, before dinner was served!