My Very First Ricecooker Cake - Marble Cake

Recently, I was toying with the idea of steaming a few cakes using my ricecooker since I am gonna be the host for next month's Aspiring Bakers (let me take the chance to advertise this event) and the theme is gonna be Steaming Hot Cakes. I thought it would be great to discard the conventional notion that a cake should be baked and explore steaming a cake using an unconventional method - the humble ricecooker.

My humble 4 year old Toshiba (RC10L-MI)

However, there are not many cake recipes on the web that teach you exactly how to steam a cake using a ricecooker. I manage to find a Toshiba ricecooker pdf manual that documents how exactly to bake steam a cake using the Cook, Rapid Cook or Congee setting in a Toshiba ricecooker. That is a godsend since my Toshiba does not have a Cake function like some of the more expensive, advanced models. I also found another recipe (which I have no idea where I found it from, certainly not from Toshiba) that only says "Press Cook and allow to bake for 50-60 min". Somehow this recipe attracted my attention and I decided to give it a try since it looked pretty straightforward and I thought the instructions should be applicable for all types of ricecookers, not just Toshiba. So it was this recipe which I used yesterday to steam my very first ricecooker cake - a Chocolate Swirl Butter Cake, better known in layman terms as a Marble Cake.

Here it is, my very first (toshiba) ricecooker cake. Just look at the resultant cake when it first came out of the ricecooker, doesn't it look like some volcano crater? Haha.

But when you turn it around, it looks very nice and curvy, a beautiful dome-shaped cake. Look at the crust, isn't it beautiful? The chocolate swirl should have been more spread-out instead of being concentrated in one area, that was my mistake, as I disregarded the instructions and did what I did previously for my oven-baked marble cake. :( Otherwise this would have been a beautiful ricecooker steamed chocolate swirl butter cake.

If you look carefully enough at the picture below, you will notice that the centre of the cake (actually the top of the cake since the cake was inverted) was a bit wet. I actually had an inkling of the problem when I first opened the ricecooker, I poked the surface using my finger and noticed that the cake was firm and springy to the touch at the sides but the centre seemed to be a bit soft. But I was hard-pressed for time yesterday, this cake was actually meant to be brought to somebody's house, and I was already late for the appointment. So I just took the cake out, turned it over, and cut it into half. Indeed, the cake was a bit wet and lava-like right in the middle, about the area of a 2-cm circle, but the rest of the cake was well-cooked. I was disappointed since I couldn't bring the cake along. But tastewise, the cake was very yummy. It was sweet, moist and buttery but not crumbly, and a bit chocolaty. Honestly, it tasted just like an oven-baked marble cake. You wouldn't have guessed that this was a cake steamed in a ricecooker. The crust was especially firm and crispy and the cake tastes even better the next day.

I was pondering and hesitating whether I should publish this post at all as it was not exactly a 100 percent successful cake (on a scale of 10, i would give it an 8 to 8.5), but I thought it might be interesting to those who are learning to make cakes using their ricecookers. Furthermore I think I should also document my experience so that I can learn from my mistakes, and I can share my experience online with others. Hopefully some readers (if there is anybody reading my blog at all) will be able to feedback and give me a pointer or two, on their own experiences and how to improve this ricecooker cake recipe further.

So here is the recipe of my very first ricecooker cake, a handwritten recipe adapted from Gourmet Haven (link unknown).

Ingredients

200g butter

200 190g sugar (still too sweet for me, would like to reduce to 175g in future)

3 eggs

1 egg yolk 

190g cake flour/plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

70g melted chocolate (melted in double boiler or in microwave on High for 1 min)

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar together till light and fluffy.

2. Mix in 3 eggs and 1 egg yolk, one by one.

3. Fold in sifted flour and baking powder.

4. Fold in melted chocolate (mix a little to create a spiral effect).

5. Pour mixture into a greased rice pot.

6. Press "COOK" in the ricecooker and allow to cook for 50-60 minutes at least 60 minutes.

7. Cool the cake for a while, then flip the cake out onto a plate.

Important Notes

1. Remember to remove any remaining rice grains from the rice pot before pouring in the cake batter as you definitely don't want your cake to end up a rice cake. :)

2. Remember to grease the rice pot. No doubt the rice pot is non-stick, but you should still grease the pot slightly, no need to use too much oil/butter/baking spray as this is a butter cake which is high in fat content. It will slip out of the pot in a split second when you invert it. Use a plate to cover the top of the pot before you invert the cake. Do not use a knife to loosen the cake as you will risk damaging the non-stick surface of the rice pot.

3. Using my Toshiba RC10L-MI ricecooker, I pressed "COOK" until it beeps (9.02am->9.32am, 30 min), then I pressed "COOK" a second time until it beeps (9.32am->9.49am, 17 min), finally I pressed "RAPID COOK" until it beeps (9.49am->10.02am, 13 min), it took 60 min in total, just as expected. But the cake was still a bit wet in the middle, I should have pressed "COOK" or "RAPID COOK" again (a 4th time) when the cake was not well done in the middle after 60 min, but then I was rushing for time....

4. While the cake is steaming in the ricecooker, do not open and peep. Not until 60 minutes are over. Then you can open the ricecooker and check if it is cooked. First test with a toothpick by poking around, and then use your fingertip to press the centre of the cake to see if it is as firm as the sides. Usually the cake will be well-cooked and hence firm and springy to the touch at the sides. But if the centre of the cake is not well-cooked, it will be softer and denser than the sides. Flip the cake out into a plate and cut it into half. If the cake is not well-cooked in the centre, no worries, put the 2 halves back together, use a plate to flip it back into the ricecooker pot and press "COOK" and let it cook until it beeps. Then check using your finger again, be careful of your finger though :)

5. You know what, I was a smart-aleck. I took out half of the batter after step 3, and added the melted chocolate so that there was a portion of plain batter and another portion of chocolate batter. Then I tried to add alternating spoons of plain and chocolate batter, just like my oven-baked marble cake. But it didn't work very well for me, cos the batter was not fluid enough and I had difficulty achieving the spiral effect of a marble cake. On hind sight, I should have stuck to the original step (which I have written above) of just adding melted chocolate to the batter in step 4 and pour the whole batter into the ricecooker pot.

6. If you want something easier for a start, you can just leave out the chocolate and make a ricecooker butter cake using the same recipe. Cook for at least 1 hour. Easy peasy. :)

For more ricecooker cakes, do check out my other bakes :)
- Chocolate Lava Ricecooker Cake
- Matcha Green Tea Ricecooker Cake
- Steamed Moist Banana Ricecooker Cake