Hot Chocolate Mousse

Last weekend gave me the perfect opportunity to make this cake/pudding: we were having Sami's cousin and her son over for Saturday lunch. Sami's cousin is a high school teacher with a lot of personality; her son is her perfect comic foil, with deadpan delivery. We had a lovely long meal with interesting conversations about trade in 19th century Britain and how Tunisians would react to vegetarianism, for example.

I knew this would be a perfect dessert to make for this woman because she loves chocolate. She had hunted down the best chocolatier in Saint-Germain-en-Laye before we moved here, and when we brought her a box of my favorite chocolate, she got excited like a child at Christmas. My kind of dinner guest.

There are a lot of aspects of this recipe that make it great. For one, it's quite simple: once you've separated your eggs, you're home free. You can also make most of the recipe a few hours ahead of time and then finish it and put it in the oven right before you start your dinner. It doesn't fall like a soufflé, so it doesn't matter that you've barely gotten to the cheese course when the cake is ready to come out of the oven.

And let me just say that this is the perfect kind of dessert for a silicon pan like this: I'm not sure whether the cake would have unmolded from a regular Bundt pan.

And the verdict? It was light, fluffy, and very chocolate. It was more a cake than a mousse, really, but with whipped cream, it was a really excellent end to a fun meal.

Here's the recipe. Make it for chocolate-loving friends.

Hot Chocolate Mousse

5 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped relatively fine

1/2 c. (4 oz.) butter, room temperature

1 c. (8 oz.) boiling water

8 eggs, separated

3/4 c. (5.25 oz.) sugar

(optional: about 1/2 t. vanilla)

Pinch salt

If you're going to bake the cake right away, heat the oven to 350. Get out a Bundt pan and a baking pan (probably a 9x13 pan) that can hold the Bundt pan and some water. Butter the Bundt pan, even if it's nonstick, and sprinkle it with sugar.

In a medium bowl or glass measuring cup put the butter and chocolate. Add the boiling water and let stand for a minute or two. Stir until smooth. If it's not quite smooth, give it 30 seconds or so in the microwave. Let cool and then freeze for 15 minutes until quite thick. Whisk well and set aside.

In another medium-large bowl put the egg yolks and beat then just until mixed. Gradually add 1/2 cup (3.5 oz.) of the sugar (and the vanilla, if you want) and beat at high speed until thick and pale, 10 minutes (mine didn't take quite that long to reach that stage). Gradually fold the chocolate mixture into the egg yolks. You can let this sit for a couple of hours now if you need to.

Add the salt to the egg whites in the big bowl of a mixer (with a whisk attachment) and beat until they start holding a soft shape. Turn down the mixer and gradually add the remaining sugar. Turn the speed up and beat until the whites hold a stiff peak. Gradually fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.

Pour the mousse into the prepared pan--pour into one side and then into the other. Carefully smooth it out. Put the Bundt pan in the larger pan. Put the pan in the oven and then carefully pour hot water into the large pan until it's about 1 inch up the side of the Bundt pan. Bake for 45 minutes (check after 30 minutes and cover with foil if the cake seems too dark).

Remove cake from the oven and then the water-filled pan; let stand 5 minutes. Then reverse onto the serving platter but do not remove the cake pan. Let stand for 15 minutes, then remove the pan. While the cake is standing, make some whipped cream:

1 c. whipping cream

2 T. powdered sugar

1 T. each Cognac and rum (or Grand Marnier), or 1/2 t. vanilla

(The quantities given here are half those Maida gives. She probably likes whipped cream more than I do--there's always way too much.)

Put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and whip until the cream holds a soft shape. I put the cream in the center of the Bundt ring, and it looked pretty. Eat soon and with gusto.

Dione's Chocolate Roll

We had one last dinner last week with our friends Gabriela and Alberto, who are leaving France to return to their beautiful resort in Puerto Vallarta. I will miss them sorely--we've had fun learning about the French education system, exploring Paris and Pontlevoy, and eating some fabulous meals together.

Gabriela has also been a big supporter of the blog, suggesting that I branch out with tourism tips and the like. And she enjoys my cakes. So I had to make something special for the evening.

We met at an Italian restaurant, where we consumed a lot of food and even more wine--the pitchers of Italian red seemed to disappear before we even realized they were there. Five adults, five teenaged girls, five carafes of wine--it's no wonder a couple who had been seated near us asked to be moved.

But as things were winding down, I reminded Gabriela that I had made cake, so we went to our house to pick it up before returning to her place to enjoy it with, yes, a bottle of Champagne.

Gabriela told a story about how, growing up in Mexico, she always looked at the cakes on the covers of women's magazines and begged her mother to make those cakes for her. But in the tropical heat, with no air conditioning, the cream just didn't want to whip and the cakes looked kind of sad.

Well, I have to say my cake looked pretty sad, too. There's no frosting, and Maida says that cracks are to be expected. Fair enough. But I must also say that the cake disappeared almost as quickly as the wine.

We agreed that we would meet again soon, in Mexico (I seem to have my February vacation planned...) and that I would bake them another cake. I'm really looking forward to that.

Oh, and the cake is delicious--light and fluffy and yet extremely chocolatey. You may have noticed that I put cherry jam on half the cake because certain family members *cough Claire cough* object to fruit and chocolate. I recommend jam on the whole thing--cherry or raspberry or apricot. It offsets the chocolate/whipped cream thing nicely.

Here's the recipe. Make it for good friends.

Dione's Chocolate Roll

8 oz. semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped or broken up

1/3 c. boiling water

8 eggs, separated

1 c. (7 oz.) sugar

Pinch salt

1/4 c. (0.75 oz.) cocoa powder, for dusting

Heat the oven to 350. Line a jelly roll or large half-sheet pan (12 x 18 inches) with parchment and butter the parchment.

Put the chocolate in a large-ish glass bowl and pour the boiling water over it. Stir to achieve as much melting as possible--I needed to give it another 20 seconds in the microwave. Let cool a bit. Put the egg yolks and 3/4 of the sugar in a medium mixing bowl; beat at high speed until the yolks are almost white, scraping once or twice during the process. Gently fold in the chocolate until you have a uniform color. Set aside.

In a larger bowl, with clean beaters, beat the egg whites with the salt until they start to hold a shape. Gradually beat in the rest of the sugar and beat until the whites hold a stiff peak (see the picture above). Fold the whites into the chocolate mixture about a third at a time. Gently spread into the prepared pan. Bake for 17 minutes (I took mine out after about 14 minutes, when I was starting to smell burned chocolate. Use your common sense.).

While the cake is baking, get out a large, clean towel and get it just barely damp. When the cake is baked, put it on a rack and cover it with the damp towel. Cover that with a dry towel. Then let sit and steam for 20 minutes. Uncover the cake and sprinkle it with the cocoa powder (through a strainer is best). Then cover the cake with waxed paper and then a cookie sheet and flip the cake over. Carefully peel the parchment off and let the cake cool to room temperature, preferably covered with more waxed paper. When it's cooled down enough, it's time to whip the cream.

1-1/2 c. (12 oz.) whipping cream

3 T. (0.75 oz.) powdered sugar

1 t. vanilla

(1/3-1/2 c. jam of your choice)

In a chilled bowl with chilled beaters, whip the cream, sugar, and vanilla until quite stiff--Maida suggests just this side of butter. Spread jam on the cake if you'd like, then spread the whipped cream on top of that. Use the waxed paper to help you roll up the cake the long way. Yes, it will crack, and Maida says you can sprinkle on more cocoa if you want. Chill the cake and enjoy with a nice glass of Champagne.

Frozen Fudge Cake

Life has been a bit crazy and a bit stressful lately. There has been a lot of work for me, in the form of substitute teaching and long papers to edit. I've been going into work five days a week rather than three, which makes a big difference in my cooking, shopping, and especially housekeeping schedule. We've been eating OK, but the apartment looks God-awful.

Also, Sami and I are both suffering from what we think is probably culture shock--it finally caught up with us. It was kind of funny--when I mentioned to him that I was walking around in a persistent state of unfocused dread, he admitted he'd had the same feelings. We are hoping for a speedy recovery, although lots of teaching perpetually irritating students and then a move will probably not encourage that. In the meantime, there is chocolate, and there is Pontlevoy.

If you've been reading for a while, you'll know we spent what was to Sami and me a magical 6 months in a tiny village in the Loire valley, Pontlevoy. You can ask the girls about their experience separately--it was only magical in that Voldemort kind of way for them. One of our favorite things to do there was entertain--we would have weekly parties involving groaning boards of cheese and charcuterie and, of course, Maida Heatter desserts. We fed students and faculty and village folk alike. Everyone had time for a dinner party, it seemed.

So when we decided to take a few days of our precious Easter holiday and drive down to Pontlevoy, we also planned a giant party at our host's house. Of course, that house was where we had stayed last year, so I knew my way around the kitchen. I bought a ton of food, did a bit of cooking, and mostly just put food on the table. At least 20 people and one dog came through the house. They put a dent in the food (I don't think the dog had any of the food), and they did not leave a drop of wine in the house (especially after the bar down the street closed early for Easter). It was definitely like old times, speaking French and English, filling plates and glasses, smiling at compliments, enjoying old and new friends.

And then there was this cake. I made it here in Le Pecq to transfer over since Maida said it would keep several days. When we arrived in Pontlevoy on Thursday, I turned on the freezer upstairs, wrapped the cake in plastic, and put it in there. On Saturday, the evening of the party, the cake was frozen solid but magically delicious. We sliced it and served everyone and there was still a largish hunk left over.

It's very rich and chocolatey--just look at the ingredient list! It's like a frozen chocolate/mocha mousse. Everyone seemed to love it, but it was too much for many people, who at that point were just concentrating on their wine.

Here's the recipe. Make this when you need a break from the stresses of life and/or when you have a lot of people to make happy.

Frozen Fudge Cake

18 oz. semisweet chocolate, broken up

2 c. (13 oz.) sugar

2 c. (1 lb.) butter

1 c. (8 oz.) strong brewed coffee or 1 T. instant dissolved in 1 c. boiling water

Pinch salt

9 large eggs

Heat the oven to 250-that's with a 2. Butter the bottom and sides of a springform pan and dust it with cocoa. Consider wrapping the bottom of the springform in aluminum foil. In a large microwave-safe bowl, mix the chocolate, sugar, butter, coffee, and salt. Melt at 30-second intervals until smooth. In a medium bowl, whip the eggs with a whisk until foamy. Gradually pour the eggs into the chocolate and stir well. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 2 hours. Then turn the oven off, crack the door, and let the cake sit in the oven for another 30 minutes. Take out of the oven and let cool to room temperature. Then unmold and wrap tightly in plastic. Freeze at least overnight--this is still good after a few days.

When you're ready to serve, whip some cream:

2 c. cream

1/3 c. (1.3 oz.) powdered sugar

3/4 t. vanilla

2 T. (1 oz.) Cognac or rum (I used whiskey)

Whip together in a chilled bowl. If you think you might eat the cake in one go (we couldn't even with well over 15 guests), frost it with whipped cream. It's safer to serve the cream on the side.

Cowtown Chocolate (Cup)cake(s)

Monday was not the best of days for me. On my way to work, I somehow managed to lose the necklace I had been wearing, at work I tripped over my laptop cord and sent it flying (with only minor cosmetic damage; Claire's watching a movie on that laptop as we speak), and then on my way home work the train stopped and we were told to get out because the last station (the closest to our apartment) was closed. So once I'd made the trek home (not too tragic: only a 25-minute walk rather than a 10-minute walk), I was ready for some Cupcake Therapy.

I think it's true for a lot of bakers that it's the process of baking, not necessarily the product, that is soothing.

That's really true for me: assembling the ingredients, melting, mixing, separating, beating...it's a happy process because it has predictable outcomes. And it smells good.

Because I wanted process rather than product, I turned the Cowtown Chocolate Cake, which is normally a layer cake, into cupcakes. I just halved the recipe and reduced the cooking time.

I knew that this would be a good recipe because it had my stamp of approval on it: a red moose in the shape of an M that my cousin Catie gave me when I was maybe in my early teens. A lot of my cookbooks have that stamp of approval.

My past self was right: This is a very good cake recipe. Two kinds of chocolate in the cake can't hurt, and then this was topped by a really nice ganache made from unsweetened chocolate (well, since I've almost run out of Baker's, I used 86% and cut down on the sugar).

Apparently this is a famous Texas recipe. All I know is that the cupcakes were fun to make and made a nice Valentine's Day treat. I would make them again even on a good day!

Here's the recipe: double it if you want to make a full-on layer cake. You'll probably have more frosting than you need for the cupcakes, but I trust you'll find some way to use it.

Cowtown Chocolate Cake

2.5 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/4 c. (2 oz.) butter, room temperature

2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1/2 t. instant espresso

1/2 t. vanilla

scant 1/2 c. (3 oz.) sugar

scant 1/2 c. (3 oz.) brown sugar

2 egg yolks (save a white! and use the other white to make these)

3/4 c. (3 oz.) sifted flour

10 T. (5 oz.) buttermilk

1 egg white

Heat the oven to 350. Line about 10 muffin cups with cupcake liners. Melt the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl--about 1 minute in 30-second bursts. Cream the butter with the cocoa, baking soda, salt, espresso, and vanilla until smooth. Gradually add the sugars and beat for 2-3 more minutes until fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each. Mix in the melted chocolate and beat until smooth. On low speed or by hand, stir in the flour in 3 additions interspersed with the buttermilk in two additions; mix just until incorporated each time. In a separate small, clean bowl and with clean beaters, beat the egg white until stiff. Fold it carefully into the cake batter. Portion among the muffin cups and bake for about 30 minutes--check after 25 or so. A toothpick should come out clean. Let cool on a rack while you make the frosting.

1/2 c. (4 oz.) cream

scant 1/2 c. (3 oz.) sugar

Pinch salt

2.25 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/4 c. (2 oz.) butter

1/2 t. vanilla

In a small, heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream, sugar, and salt to a boil. Turn down the heat and let the mixture simmer 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Take the pot off the heat and add the chocolate and butter; stir until it is all melted and smooth. Stir in the vanilla.

Cool the frosting over an ice-water bath or in the refrigerator until it has become cool and a bit thicker. Use a mixer to beat it for a few minutes until it becomes a lighter color. Frost the cupcakes as you see fit. Share them with someone you love.

Williams-Sonoma Chocolate Cake

Last week, the lead up to Christmas, was really fun. We interspersed trips into Paris for shopping, dining, and avant-garde circus with staying at home and relaxing. And cooking. And eating.

We also had some friends from work over for dinner. I went into my usual "Oh my gosh, I have to feed French people!" frenzy, compounded by the additional stressor that one of the guests managed a restaurant in England. He told us stories about Gordon Ramsay. Gulp.

But things went well. I made this tart and a fabulous oven cioppino-type thing, and I made this cake.

There's a cake recipe that everyone in France makes--it's on the label of every bar of dessert chocolate. It's called Moelleux du Chocolat--a cake that's light on flour and heavy on chocolate. This cake is like that. But the port adds an extra zing.

There are many things to like about this cake. One is that it's super easy to make--a bit like making brownies, except that you beat in egg whites.

Another is that you can make most of the batter ahead of time, and then just whip the egg whites, fold them in, and pop the cake in the oven so that it can be served warm for dessert.

And finally, it may not be the most beautiful of cakes, but it's delicious--soft and dark and delicious. We ate it with custard sauce--our English guest was so pleased--and every bit of it disappeared. It's the kind of dessert that is satisfyingly chocolatey but doesn't hit you over the head like a chocolate mousse would.

Here's the recipe. Consider it for your next dinner party.

Williams-Sonoma Chocolate Cake

1/2 c. (4 oz.) butter

1/2 c. (4 oz.) port (I think either tawny or ruby would be fine here)

4 oz. semisweet chocolate

2/3 c. (4.8 oz.) sugar (Maida calls for a full cup, but I think that would be way too much!)

3 large eggs, separated

3/4 c. (3 oz.) sifted flour

1/8 t. salt

Heat the oven to 325 (or wait if you're going to bake this at the last minute). Line the bottom of a 10-inch springform with a circle of parchment and grease and flour the pan and paper.

Melt the butter and chocolate with the port either in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat or in the microwave. Let cool.

Beat the egg yolks with all but 2 T. of the sugar (4 oz.) until light and thick; you can do this with an electric mixer or a whisk and some elbow grease. Gradually add the chocolate mixture and beat that until smooth. Then stir in the flour. (You can set aside this batter for a while until you're ready to bake. Keep everything, including the egg whites, at room temperature.)

When you're ready to bake, make sure the oven is heated to 325. Now beat the egg whites with the salt until they hold a soft shape; gradually beat in the remaining 2 T. sugar and beat until they hold a fairly stiff shape. Fold the egg whites gradually into the chocolate mixture; you should not be too thorough.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes (check earlier if your oven runs hot). Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then unmold. Serve hot with whipped cream or custard sauce and/or fruit. Enjoy the praise of your guests.

Kansas City Chocolate...Dream?

Before I get to the cake, I have a few more kitchen photos to share. Note that the kitchen is still rather a mess. This is partially due to moving, partially due to this being an "active" kitchen, and mostly due to my being, as my father so charmingly puts it, "one in a long line of bad housekeepers." Oh, well.

So you'll notice the fabulous cabinet Sami built (with the help of a certain Swedish superstore) to go over the island. I haven't optimized storage in the place yet, but it's better.

Another shot of the whole kitchen as it now looks. In about a week, I hope there will be a dishwasher under one of these cabinets! But right now there's a giant transformer under the cabinet that runs my appliances. The Cuisinart passed the test. Haven't hauled out the Kitchenaid just yet...

And another shot of my poor cookbook. I'm not sure it's going to make it out of this experience alive.

OK, on to the recipe, which we could subtitle "Kansas City Chocolate Nightmare, or Maida's Chocolate Cakes Kick Maria's Butt Once Again". (In other words, Alicia is going to love this recipe.) This is another "novelty" recipe--"Hey, cake with sauerkraut! What the hey?" "They used to make soggy pie with molasses--why not now?" and now "This fad of baking a weird liquidy cake so that it comes out with frosting on the bottom swept the nation--must be good, right?"

Let me back up and say that I took a huge risk on this recipe: I doubled it to bring to the two American Section cocktail parties we were invited to Friday night. Last year, I brought Barron's Brownies to such a gathering, and they were a huge hit. What could go wrong?

Lots of chocolate in cocoa form, but not much butter or other fat. Also, lots of water. And sugar. These are the syrup ingredients before the water went in.

You make a brownie-like batter, and then pour a hot mocha syrup over that. And then you bake it. Um, you might want to put something under that cake...

...because that syrup is going to boil over and make your kitchen/apartment smell dreadful.

And after all that, you have a rather funny-looking cake with spotty frosting. And you're going to get dressed up and bring that to some millionaire's house (actually, two separate millionaires' houses) without batting an eyelash.

I got up the courage to try this once I could build up plausible deniability. It was OK, but to me it tasted flat. It has the right texture (chewy cake and gooey frosting), but I found the frosting tasted more of flour than of chocolate. To summarize, there's not enough FAT in this cake. I found a Cook's Country recipe (from the February 2007 issue; you have to pay to see the recipe online) with twice the amount of butter, an egg yolk, and a half cup of chocolate chips. That would most likely taste better.

But here's the recipe. Don't expect to make your reputation as a baker with it.

Kansas City Chocolate Dream

1 c. (4 oz.) sifted flour

2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

2 T. (0.4 oz.) cocoa powder

2/3 c. (4.5 oz.) sugar

3/4 c. (6 oz.) milk--I recommend whole milk here

1 t. vanilla

2 T. (1 oz.) melted butter

1/2 c. (2 oz.) chopped walnuts

Heat the oven to 350. Butter an 8-inch square pan. Consider putting it on a foil-lined baking sheet--just saying. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder, and sugar into a mixing bowl (I recommend actually sifting here because both cocoa powder and baking powder tend to make unappetizing lumps). Add the milk, vanilla, and melted butter and beat, by hand or with a mixer, until light and smooth. Stir in the walnuts and then turn into the prepared pan. Don't put it in the oven yet--make the syrup first:

1/3 c. (2.3 oz.) sugar

6 T. (1.1 oz.) cocoa powder

1/2 c. (3.5 oz.) brown sugar

2 t. instant coffee or espresso

1 c. water

Put all of these in a saucepan and bring them to a boil, whisking to dissolve the sugars and cocoa. No reason you couldn't also do this in a large Pyrex container in the microwave. While this is still boiling, carefully pour it over the cake batter. You'll have a nasty-looking mess. Carefully put that in the oven (preferably on a foil-lined cookie sheet) and bake for 40 minutes (although my kitchen was smoking and the cake was very done after just 25--and yes, I have an oven thermometer that read exactly 350) until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan. Then put a plate on top of the cake pan and flip it upside down. The cake won't come out, and you'll tap on the pan a whole bunch. Finally, you'll use a rubber scraper to dislodge the cake and frosting. Do your best to swirl the frosting around and make this pretty. Serve anonymously.

Long Island Potato Cake

Doesn't sound that appetizing, does it? Or does it perhaps sound like some sort of latke thing? In any case, I think this is not one of Maida's more inspired recipe names. It's not clear why it comes from Long Island--are they famous for their potatoes? And the potatoes are really background players here. It's more a Moist and Tender Chocolate Prune Cake. That title may not be more appetizing, depending on how you feel about the word moist and about prunes, but it's certainly more descriptive. The potatoes seem to be there as a butter substitute, as is sometimes seen in recipes using applesauce or prune purée. The cake is moist and tender without a lot of butter.
So here is the ingredient lineup. Spices, cocoa, mashed potatoes, prunes, walnuts. And of course butter, eggs, sugar, flour. How can you go wrong?

Look at that tiny chunk of butter. Barely enough to absorb the baking powder and spices.

I made half a recipe and thought it would be perfect for a set of large muffins. I was wrong.

Had to scrape out the muffin pan and use the loaf pan after all. Oh well.

I had one slice of cake and liked it a lot. Claire had a slice and objected to the "raisins." What a surprise. She was even more indignant when I told her that the raisins were prunes. Then I packed up the cake and brought it to Julia, lover of all things prune. When I asked her opinion, she told me that the prunes were great and the chocolate part was delicious and soft, "but the walnuts?" Everyone's a critic.

So if you like chocolate AND prunes AND walnuts and you want a nice moist, spicy cake, here's a good recipe for you. I'm giving the recipe as printed, which makes two loaves. If you only want one loaf (or maybe 18 muffins), cut it in half.

Long Island Potato Cake

3/4 lb. potatoes
8 oz. (1 cup, packed) pitted prunes
4 oz. (1 stick) butter
1 T. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. powdered instant espresso
3/4 t. salt
1/2 t. nutmeg
1 t. vanilla
1-1/2 c. (10 oz.) sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 c. (2.25 oz.) Dutch-process cocoa
1/2 c. (4 oz.) milk
2 c. (8 oz.) flour (I used about a third whole wheat)
6 oz. (1-1/2 c.) walnuts, in large pieces

Heat the oven to 300; butter and flour two 8-inch loaf pans. Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters or eighths, depending on their size. Cook them in unsalted water for about 20 minutes or until tender. Mash them (without butter or milk, of course) your favorite way—I used a fork but wished I’d had some more advanced technology (like a ricer or even a food processor) to deal with the lumps. Meanwhile, use scissors to cut the prunes up into quarters—Maida says the pieces should be the size of raisins.
When your potatoes are mashed and cooling off, start the cake: Cream the butter with the baking powder, cinnamon, espresso, salt, and nutmeg until nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla and sugar and beat another 2-3 minutes. Then add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each. On low speed, beat in the mashed potatoes, then the cocoa, then the milk, and finally the flour, each just until incorporated. Finally, mix in the prunes and walnuts by hand. Pour into the loaf pans. Maida suggests you draw a trench in the middle so that the cake rises better. I didn’t and my loaf wasn’t misshapen or anything, but it did rise high and crack like most loaf cakes do. Either way, put the loaves in the oven and bake for 1 hour 25 minutes (start checking after an hour) or until a tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then unmold onto racks and let cool completely. Maida suggests that you chill the loaves overnight, but I found the cake to be delicious warm from the oven.

Chocolate sponge cake, or I'm no Macgyver

I have to say that I approached this recipe with trepidation. Reason One: Maida's chocolate cakes and I don't always get along, as seen in the Chocolate Festival Cake, Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake, and Red Beet Cake. Reason Two: Maida mentions in the headnotes that "You need an electric mixer on a stand for all the beating." Uh, no. Excellent workout for the arm, though. And Reason Three: You need a metal tube pan ("It must not be nonstick") for this thing to work. All I brought with me was silicon bakeware (it's much lighter in the suitcase), and the tube pan I borrowed from a friend was nonstick. So I had to improvise. If there's one thing I'm learning from this blog experience, it's how to improvise.

Here are the ingredients--oops, forgot the flour. But you can see right away that this will be a light, fluffy, no-butter cake.

Here's my improvised tube pan--a springform pan with a tin can in the middle. I probably should have opened the bottom of the can. And I probably should have centered it better.

Here's my improvised pan with the batter I spent 20 minutes mixing. It's a testament to how much I've been doing with my right arm that it didn't even hurt after all that.

Here's the cake out of the oven. As it was baking, I noticed that the batter got underneath the can and lifted it up. Oops. As I said, I'm no Macgyver.

And here's the cake. If my pan had been the correct size (I believe it was a bit big, although at one point the cake threatened to escape and spill over), perhaps it wouldn't be this flat. Still the cake is indeed "so light it feels as though it might fly away." And it did--straight into our mouths. But as light as it was, it was just kind of fluffy and sweet and cinnamon-y, but not very chocolatey. Claire said it needed frosting. I agreed--though I think a couple ounces of shaved chocolate folded into the batter might be even better. So I made ganache for the second half.

Mmmm...much better. This had better "fly away" to someone else's stomach before Claire and I devour the whole thing!

Here's the recipe. This is a great time to use the whisk attachment on your Kitchenaid.

Chocolate Sponge Cake
3/4 c. (2.6 oz.) sifted cake flour
1/4 c. (.75 oz.) cocoa powder
2 t. powdered instant espresso
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
6 large eggs, probably best room temperature
2 t. vanilla
1 scant cup (6.5 oz.) sugar
(2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, shaved)

Preheat the oven to 325. Get out an angel food cake pan--a two-piece metal tube pan, but don't butter or spray it. Get out a sifter or strainer and two pieces of waxed paper. Put the flour, cocoa, espresso, cinnamon, and salt in the sifter and sift that mixture 6 times onto the waxed paper (actually, Maida says 7), alternating pieces of paper. I'm not sure what exactly the function of all this sifting is, but it's kind of fun.
Now put your eggs and vanilla in the mixing bowl, put in the whisk attachment, and crank up the mixer to high. Let that go for about 15 minutes, or until the mixture has "the consistency of soft whipped cream." This took 15 minutes on my hand mixer; it may take less time with a more powerful stand mixer. Then add the sugar very gradually, beating 3 more minutes while you add it. Sift the dry ingredients over the eggs, give that a couple of quick folds, and then VERY BRIEFLY use the mixer to get the flour incorporated. (If you choose to, fold in the chocolate now.) Wet the angel food cake pan with cold water, shake it out, and then fill it with the cake batter. Maida says to put half on one side and half on the other; this was a very good idea for me since the can kept sliding around. You shouldn't have that problem with a real pan. Bake for 50-55 minutes (mine was a bit overdone at 35 minutes, but I have trouble converting Fahrenheit to Celsius), "until the top just barely springs back when pressed with a fingertip." Turn the pan upside down (no, you don't need to hang it from a Coke bottle like Mom used to do) and let it cool like that. When the cake is completely cool, carefully cut around the edges and then unmold the cake. Maida recommends serving this upside down, which is actually more attractive. You can serve this plain, with fruit and powdered sugar, or with a lovely ganache. And get ready for it to fly off the plate.

Big Daddy's Cake

Ah, the holiday rush. Party after party after party...When you're supposed to be baking for a blog, this can be a good thing. Especially if you have a gigantic cake with a tunnel of fudge you're supposed to bake. Take it to the party and let other people eat it, I say! So that's what I did with this cake about 2 weeks ago.
On the day I baked this, I had a lot going on: the usual Saturday laundry/shopping routine, closets that were calling to be cleaned out, I think there was editing as well, and I had promised to bake cookies for a church function. And the cake had to be ready for a 3:00 party. Fortunately, this is one of those cakes that looks impressive but is actually fairly easy. You make pretty much a pound cake, then put together a coffee-flavored ganache; pour the ganache into a trench in the cake batter, sprinkle that with pecans, and bake.

Here's the cake getting ready to bake.


And here it is fresh from the oven. I didn't get a chance to photograph it frosted, and it didn't get cut until the party, so I don't have a "tunnel of fudge" picture. What I noticed is that the fudge and the frosting pretty much join in a giant layer of chocolate at the top of the cake. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I tasted a bit of the white cake, and it was very good--dense and just a bit fluffy. Sami tried the whole thing and pronounced it delicious. None of it came home, which is a very good sign--for the cake and for me!

Here's the recipe. Bake this when you have a lot of people to feed!
Big Daddy's Cake

7 oz. (2 cups) toasted pecan halves/large pieces (here you probably don't want the TJ's chopped pecans because they're too small)
6 oz. semisweet chocolate
3 T. strong coffee (2-3 t. instant espresso dissolved in 3 T. water, or leftover from the morning)
3 T. cream
12 oz. (3 sticks!!) butter, room temperature
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1-1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 t. almond extract
2 c. (14 oz.) sugar
6 large eggs
4 c. (16 oz.) sifted flour
1-1/4 c. milk

Heat the oven to 350; spray a Bundt pan well. Chop half of the pecans fine and coat the Bundt pan with them. Leave the pecans that don't stick to the sides of the pan on the bottom of the pan.
Melt the chocolate with the coffee in the microwave--it will probably take two 30-second sessions. Stir until smooth, then add the cream. Set this aside.
Cream the butter with the baking powder and salt until fluffy. Gradually add the sugar, vanilla, and almond extract, and beat for 5-7 minutes or until super fluffy and light in color. This is something I heard on the Splendid Table--you should really beat the butter and sugar a long time to form as many air bubbles as possible. You could probably melt your chocolate and stuff while the butter is mixing. Now add the eggs one at a time, beating until well incorporated after each. (I tried out my Beater Blade with this cake and was delighted to see that I didn't have to scrape down the bowl all the time.) On low speed add the flour in three additions alternating with the milk in two additions. When it's all mixed, pour it into the prepared Bundt pan. Make a trench in the batter and pour the chocolate mixture into the trench. I put it in in globs and then spread it around. Break the remaining cup of pecans into large pieces and sprinkle them on top of everything. Then put it all in the oven and bake for 50-55 minutes. Cover it with foil and give it another 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. The cake will have a giant crack in it. Cool the cake in the pan for 20 minutes, then carefully unmold it onto a plate. Let it cool completely, or until it's almost time to go to the party, whichever comes first.
Now it's time to make the glaze. This is a no-brainer:

6 oz. semisweet chocolate
2 T. butter

Melt this in the microwave in 2 30-second bursts; stir until smooth. Pour over the cake and let it drip down the sides. Regard your masterpiece and then hustle it out of the house. The recipe says 12 portions, but I would say it's at least 20.

Freaky sheet cake: Red Beet Cake

Hey, does anyone remember the original book Freaky Friday? Before Jodi Foster and Lindsay Lohan? I don't remember much about the book except that the neighbor, Boris, seems to have a crush on the mom and offers to bring her "beet loaf." Except that he has a cold and his name is Morris. But the beet loaf is not, in fact, meat loaf. That always killed me.
Well, my name is Baria, and I'm baking you a beet cake. Aren't you glad it's not meat cake?
There was a lot of freaky stuff about this cake. First of all was, in fact, the beets. As Claire asked me, "What's the point of putting beets in a cake?" Indeed--what's the point? It's not like it's any healthier, what with the 1 cup of salad oil and all. I guess you could call it sneaking in vegetables, but after the buttery frosting and all, that's not exactly healthy living. I'm guessing that this recipe, like the sauerkraut one, was a response to the Beet Advisory Council's call for Creative Use of Beets. Personally, I'll eat mine roasted with blue cheese and walnuts and maybe a little mâche. Now that is a good use of beets.
On the plus side, this recipe was super easy to make. Since I had already puréed the beets in the food processor and noted that there was no incorporation of air called for, I decided to mix the whole shebang in the food processor. So in went the sugar, the eggs, the vanilla, the melted chocolate/melted butter, the oil...and so on. Quick and painless. As you'd notice if you'd read the recipe, it doesn't call for butter, but I subbed half of the oil for butter.

So here's the lovely batter in the pan. Claire took the time to smooth it out and make it look all nice and perfect.
I have to say, it rose evenly and high, thanks to baking soda and Claire's careful swirling.
The frosting was the next freaky thing. What's up with cooked flour and milk in a buttercream frosting? And I beat the butter and sugar for a long time, but the sugar never dissolved, so it was kind of grainy. C+ for the frosting for sure. But didn't Claire do a nice job with her swirls?

Here's a blurry piece of cake. Note the thick layer of grainy, buttery frosting. The texture and taste of this reminded me of Wacky Cake--you know, the kind with the vinegar where you make a well in the flour and dump in all your ingredients? Kind of one-dimensional, but very moist. When Sami first tried it, he was sure that Claire had made it from a mix because it has "a texture only chemicals can create." Chemicals and beets!
So the verdict? If you want to eat beets, eat beets. If you want to eat chocolate cake, try this one or this one. This is strictly a novelty recipe in my book. But I sure hope those students I palmed this off on enjoyed it!!

OK, much later, here's the recipe. Bake it for your next Beet Council event.

Red Beet Cake

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate

8-10 oz. cooked beets (canned or fresh; you decide)

1-1/2 c. (10 oz.) sugar

1 c. (8 oz.) salad oil

1 t. vanilla

3 large eggs

1-3/4 c. (7 oz.) flour

1-1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

Heat the oven to 350. Butter and flour (or coat with bread crumbs) a 9 by 13-inch pan. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a saucepan over low heat.

In a food processor, purée the beets. Add the sugar, oil, and vanilla, and process for about 20 seconds. Add the eggs and give it another 30 seconds. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and pulse that until it's just incorporated. Pour into the prepared pan and swirl it smooth, if you like.

Bake for 35 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed. You can let it cool in the pan to serve it like a sheet cake, or you can unmold it after 20 minutes. Either way, it's time to make the frosting:

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate

3/4 c. (6 oz.) butter, room temperature

1 c. (7 oz.) sugar

1 t. vanilla

Pinch salt

1/4 c. (1 oz.) flour

1 c. (8 oz.) milk

Melt the chocolate in the microwave or in a small saucepan over low heat. Beat the butter with an electric mixer until soft. Gradually add the sugar and beat on high speed for 5 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and salt.

Meanwhile (assuming you have a stand mixer), whisk the flour and about 1/4 c. of the milk in a small saucepan until smooth. Gradually whisk in the remaining milk. Put over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly with the whisk or a rubber spatula, until the mixture comes to a low boil. Reduce the heat and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring and scraping the mixture constantly. Remove from the heat, place the bottom of the pan in a bowl of ice and water you just happen to have handy, and continue to stir and scrape until the mixture has cooled.

Add the chocolate to the butter and sugar mixture, and then gradually beat in the flour/milk mixture. Beat just enough to incorporate.

Pour the icing over the cake and spread it over the top. You can swirl it or make it smooth.

Refrigerate the cake to set the icing--this cake can and perhaps should be served cold. And remember you're getting a serving of vegetables.

Chocolate Festival/Overkill Cake

Baking a lot is really not a problem for me--the bigger problems are the movement of the baked goods out of the house, getting photos taken before the goods have become (even more) unattractive, and especially finding time to blog about them! I made the Chocolate Festival Cake on Sunday, and here it is Friday, with half of it sitting untouched on the counter waiting for the trash can, I'm afraid.
I was very excited to make the Chocolate Festival Cake because it was a big All-American kind of cake, "as American as a Hershey bar," and Sami and I had been invited to a big All-American potluck. Well, actually, it was a party for arts faculty, which means our kind of people, which means not necessarily All-American. But I digress.

I made this cake rather in a rush, I admit. I had a big church meeting in the morning, for which I was responsible for making chili and for which I also made a sour cream coffee cake (yum!). So that was already three things going on in the kitchen between when we arrived back from the airport at 7:30 Saturday evening and when I needed to leave for church at 9:25. Somewhat tight, yes. Thanks to a helpful husband and a Crock-Pot, no problem with the chili. The coffee cake is not that difficult and made it into the oven by 7 or so. But with all the getting ready to go and packing up chili so that it wouldn't spill all over my trunk, the chocolate cake had just made it in the oven when I left. Claire was responsible for testing it and taking it out of the oven, which she did, but I neglected to tell her to unmold the cake after a certain amount of time. So I returned at 2 to a cake that had a hollow tunnel on the top. No problem, it would be inverted and frosted anyway. But I was a bit dismayed at how the cake fell apart upon unmolding--more of a tunnel.

No problem--frosting time. This was basically a peanut butter ganache. That was the best part of this cake. Two great tastes that taste great together, indeed!
I was hoping this would get devoured at the potluck, but there were at least 15 desserts and a lot of other delicious food, so my chances weren't so good. So I did my best to "sell" the cake. I got lots of takers, but no-one said anything to me. That should have told me something. I just know that the next day they were telling each other, "Bless her heart (you always preface a negative comment in the South with this), she just made a really nasty cake." And when I finally sat down at home the next day to have a slice, I couldn't help but agree.
So what went wrong? I see I've made this cake before, for "Alicia's shower (wedding? baby?). A bit much," were my cryptic comments. And I think that's part of the problem. Peanut butter and chocolate, yummy. Peanut butter and banana, also classic. Chocolate and banana, OK. Chocolate, banana, and peanut butter? Maybe too much. Also too much going on for a good cake texture, I believe.
I think salt was also an issue. Now you can see from my last post that I have no fear of salt in desserts, but this was too much. But this recipe called for a full teaspoon of salt as well as a cup of peanut butter, which in the processed form I used was also quite salty. So there was a preponderance of salty flavor going on here. If you make this cake (and I guess you have to, Alicia!), consider either using a natural peanut butter without added salt or just dialing the salt way back. I think that the cake was probably also underbaked. Claire says that the toothpick was clean, but this big behemoth of a cake was just probably too much for one tiny toothpick. But really, I think this is maybe just too much for one cake. I'm looking forward to reading your take on this.
Here's the recipe I made, if you're curious. But really, if you want to make an over-the-top chocolate/peanut butter extravaganza, this will probably fill the bill more deliciously.

Chocolate Festival Cake

4 oz. semisweet chocolate (I used a bar of Ghiradelli 60%)
3 cups (12 oz.) sifted flour
1 c. (3 oz.) Dutch-process cocoa
1 T. baking powder
2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt (but really, be careful here)
8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp.
1 c. (9.25 oz.) peanut butter (recommend natural, unsalted rather than Jif)
1 T. vanilla
2 c. (14 oz.) brown sugar
1 c. (8 oz., about 2) ripe mashed bananas
6 large eggs
1-1/4 c. milk

Heat the oven to 350; spray a tube pan or angel food cake pan with Pam. This batter is probably too fragile for a Bundt pan. Line the bottom with parchment (Trace a circle of the outside and cut, fold the circle in half, and cut a small x in the middle of the circle. Should fit right in there.) and spray again. Break the chocolate into pieces, put it into a small microwave-safe bowl, and melt it on high for a minute, stopping to stir after 30 seconds. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set that aside. Now cream the butter, then add the peanut butter and vanilla, then the sugar, and give it a good long beating until it's smooth--I would say at least 2 minutes. Then add the chocolate, and then the bananas, and then the eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition. Add the flour in 3 batches alternating with the milk in 2 batches. There's so much batter at this point that it splattered all over the place and I did the last few additions by hand. Now put the batter into the pan, tap or rotate it to smooth it out, and put it in the oven. Check the cake after an hour with a really long skewer. The cake might need another 10-15 minutes for a total of 1 hour 15 minutes. But check from time to time. Maida suggests covering the cake with foil after an hour to keep it from getting burned. I didn't have that problem. When the cake is really done, let it cool on a rack for 20 minutes (not 5 hours) and then unmold it. Let it cool completely and then frost it with the following:

10 oz. milk chocolate (Trader Joe's Pound Plus, oh yeah)
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
1/3 c. (5 T.) butter
1 c. (9 oz.) peanut butter
(Maida calls for an egg, but I can't see why I would want to put a raw egg in a ganache. I'm curious about that as well, Alicia)

Get out a big microwave-safe bowl and break up the chocolate into it. You'll probably need to chop the unsweetened chocolate with a knife if it's the Baker's kind. Put the butter in there as well. Then microwave on High for 30 seconds, stir and microwave for another 30 seconds. After much stirring, I had to give mine another 10 seconds. Then add the peanut butter and beat it with an electric mixer until it's really smooth. Put the ganache in the freezer for a bit while you enjoy licking the beaters. Then when you're already half an hour for the party, get the frosting out of the freezer and ask your husband to frost the cake. Maida recommends making peaks and swirls, but he went for the smooth look, which was good because the frosting was still a bit on the runny side.
It says this serves 24, which may be true. All I know is that I don't even want to look at it.

Chocolate what? Cake

Here's how a party works around here. We have an exchange student from France staying with us for a few days. We found out that another friend also has a French exchange student, so we agreed to get the two girls together for dinner. But then our friend knew some other people with exchange students, so we invited them as well. Then I ran into another friend on campus and invited her family and exchange student. And then I ran into another friend at the farmer's market and invited him.

So what began on Wednesday as a dinner for 8 rapidly became a blowout for 20 on Thursday. But we find that if you invite the right people, you end up with a lot more food and booze making it into the house than you're going to need for all those people. Our refrigerator runneth over...We also had lots of kitchen help--at one point there must have been about six people cutting up tamales and making cheese plates and setting out fruit and frosting my cake. William, who frosted my cake, is welcome to come any time I make cake. He is 100 times more skilled than I. Again, I wish my camera were functional :-(.
Right, the cake: the cupcakes were pretty much gone, so I decided to make what I thought would be our next dessert: Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake. Aside from it having sauerkraut in it, it did look like a good cake for a crowd: a big 2-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I figured that the strong coffee and chocolate flavors in the cake, plus the pound of chocolate frosting, would offset any "ickyness" associated with the sauerkraut. After all, you have to be careful when you're cooking for Frenchies...
By the way, I still don't get the point of this recipe. The sauerkraut doesn't enhance the recipe; in fact, the recipe seems designed to mask the sauerkraut's taste. Was the origin a sauerkraut recipe contest? It's a mystery to me.
I made the cake pretty much to the letter, except for using about half and half dark and milk chocolate in the frosting. I was able to make the cake when no one was home, so no one could see the sauerkraut going into the cake batter. I pretty much had to avert my eyes as well, and that addition also kept me from licking the bowl, which is probably a good thing. Unfortunately for my bowl-licking propensities, the frosting had no sauerkraut in it.
Results: The cake was quite crumbly. I wish my camera worked so that you could see all the crumbs on the plate. One layer cracked and needed a lot of frosting to glue it together. But it's moist and chocolaty, and the frosting is really yummy (it's pretty much the same frosting as for the last cake). There's only about a quarter of the cake left over from last night, and no one said, "ew, what's in this cake?" So I would say it's a qualified success: not so bad for a novelty cake.

Here's the recipe, in case you have leftover sauerkraut:

Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake
2/3 c. (4 oz.) drained packed sauerkraut
2-1/4 c. (9 oz.) sifted flour
1/4 t. salt
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 c. (1.5 oz.) Dutch-process cocoa
10 2/3 T. (5.3 oz.) unsalted butter, room temp.
1 t. vanilla
1-1/2 c. sugar (10 oz.)
3 large eggs
1 c. cold, strong coffee

Heat the oven to 350. Line two 9-inch round cake pans with parchment circles and then spray and flour them.
Rinse the sauerkraut and drain it. Squeeze it, but "don't overdo it." Pulse it in a food processor until it's in pretty fine pieces but not a purée.
Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cocoa.
Beat together the butter and vanilla in the large bowl of an electric mixer. Then gradually add the sugar and beat about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each until it's well incorporated and scraping down the sides between each. Then alternately add the dry ingredients in three additions and the wet ingredients in two additions. Make sure it's all smooth, taste it now, and then remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the sauerkraut.
Divide the batter among the cake pans and smooth the tops. Bake for about 22-25 minutes, "until the tops of the cakes just barely spring back when pressed lightly with a fingertip. Do not overbake." (I think I did overbake; thus the crumbliness). Cool the pans on a rack for a few minutes, then invert onto the rack. Let the cake cool completely.

Frosting

16 oz. chocolate, some milk and some dark (I used most of a Ritter Sport milk bar, a Hershey's Symphony bar, and a Ghiradelli 60% bar)
1 c. sour cream

Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a big microwave-proof bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and microwave for another 30 seconds. Stir until everything is melted. Add the sour cream and beat by hand or with a mixer until smooth. Find someone to frost your cake for you, and use it (the frosting) right away.
Serves about 20 people, if you cut your pieces small enough.

Oops, you're supposed to refrigerate this! Maybe that's why it crumbled? I really should read my recipes. Must find room in fridge...