Thunder Cake

We love the book Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco, especially during a good summer thunder storm. There is a cake recipe in that book of course, but being a celiac it wasn’t very useful to me. Besides I was intrigued with the idea of making a cake that contained or was inspired by some food that had historically been associated with storms and lighting. I kept coming across references to truffles (the mushroom not the confection) in my search– it would seem that the ancient greeks believed that they were born of Zeus’ lightning bolts. Very poetic, but I wasn’t sold on truffle cake… I considered copping out and doing candy truffles instead, but that didn’t seem in the spirit of things. (As an aside there is a whole group of cake recipes made with button mushroom that I did not explore further.) But I soon came across a number of folkloric connections between mushrooms and thunderstorms. For instance, the farmers of Japan say thunderstorms are good luck– they make the mushrooms grow! Some ancient Sanskrit hymns depict a god of thunder and mushrooms. And of course there is Zeus. More recently, scientists in Japan have found a link between lightning and prolific mushroom fruiting. They have set up farms wherein man-made lightning bolts induce large flushes of mushrooms. (Read the study here.) Scientists also think mushrooms serve another important purpose – they may help make it rain. Mushrooms create tiny spores for their own reproduction, but these spores also help to collect water in the air and form rainclouds in the sky. What better to make a Thunder Cake? Rather than using whole mushrooms, I have opted for powdered ones that are easy to find these days, don’t have a strong flavor, and are super healthy. (Mushrooms make cake healthy! Maybe?)

Mushroom Rain Thunder Cake

This is a perfect easy cake to make during a thunderstorm. It only uses one bowl and doesn’t have any complicated preparations– just dump everything in together, stir and bake. It also uses olive oil rather than butter which I picked up from Aryan Goyoaga of Cannelle et Vanille fame and I love. There is no melting or creaming it’s just done. Last I hate icing cakes and generally find icing too sweet. So instead we have stencilied a cute little design on top. I use a hot chocolate mixture with mushroom powder because it’s super easy. (Something like this, although its not the brand I used- there are quite a few options) You could sub powdered reishi, chaga or lion’s mane and cocoa or chocolate chips if you preferred.

Ingredients:

• 140 g light buckwheat flour*
• 100 g almond flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 TBS vanilla extract
• 1/2 teas. almond extract
• 1 TBS baking powder
• 1/2 teas coarse salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 c of mushroom hot chocolate powder (you can very thins depending on the strength and the brand, if you increase it substantially think about taking out some sugar to offset it)
• powdered sugar for dusting

Method:

Preheat your oven to 350° f. Grease a round (like the moon!) 9 inch cake pan.

Weigh your flours into a bowl and then add all of the other ingredients. Stir until smooth.

Scrape into prepared bowl and cook for 40-50 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes then remove from pan and allow to cool completely.

While it cools cut out all of the black spaces in the stencil diagram below. (Or make your own) Place the stencil on top of the cooled cake and sift a fine layer of powdered sugar over top with a strainer or sieve. Remove the stencil and voila! Thunder mushroom!