I would like to make a chocolate expresso cake... can I substitute fresh brewed expresso for water??

Question

I am using a box cake mix- triple fudge chocolate-- or something real yummy sounding.

I am a pro at messing up cakes & cookies - and I know baking recipes aren't to be messed with. But it's my husband's birthday and I wanted to do something different...

I am going to chill the expresso to room temperature because I can forsee that it would ruin the eggs if hot... other than that- I would assume expresso is the same as water other than the taste... ??? :)

Any advice or warnings would be appreciated... and I guess if the cake is ruined I could go pick up a tiramisu or something for him. :)

We both LOVE coffee so I can't imagine it would be anything near strong for us & I know chocolate and coffee compliment eachother.... I also figured I could get a fudge frosting or something if the cake isn't sweet enough... but I don't know why it wouldn't be since the mix probably is full of sweetness.

Thank you!!

Answer 1

It sound delicious, and I have done it before with other flavors, so I dont see why that wouldnt work just fine. I used dark cherry juice in place of water with a vanilla cake-it was awesome. Try it, and you have the right idea about getting it to room temp first. Good luck, and Happy BD to hubby-you are a good wife

Answer 2

I think I would just use regular coffee and not something stronger than that. I would like you said let it cool and I can't think that it would be any different and the idea of fudge frosting would probably be helpful just to sweeten it some since coffee is so bitter with no sugar.....you could always taste it and see by making one cupcake out of the cake batter and tasting it that way! Cool whip might be a good frosting for it as well so that it isn't too sweet but offers something just to mellow it out a little......I like to mix about half a small containter of cool whip with frosting from the can......it makes it lighter and fluffier to me! Another good thing to do would be to use heath bar and crumble it up on top just to add another great flavor!! kind of like a chocolate, coffee, toffee crunch thing! Good luck!

Answer 3

It might be a tad darker but it sounds well tasty, yum!

Also you can add in a bit of very finely ground coffee too, but not much, for texture.

Errr and you could make 2 cakes, one with and one without, then you don't have to worry about mistakes, you just double the recipe and add the coffee to one.

Answer 4

Sound like fun, the only thing that I can see about adding coffee into the mix is it might have a grainy feel on the tongue, sometime about the solids (micro-particles) in the coffee that plain liquid doesn't have, but hey, you never know till you try

Answer 5

should work fine! Ive used lots of different liquids to replace water. The only thing you might need to change is add a little baking soda for acidic liquids. usually 1/2 tsp is enough.

Answer 6

I read the question backwards.

You can definately substitute. Americano would probably work too.