Books and Chocolate Cake

I know, this isn't a food blog.  Originally, when I started the blog more than four years ago, I did post a few recipes and the occasional photo of food I'd eaten in restaurants, but 99% of my postings have been book-related.  Today I am making an exception because last week, November 15 it was National Bundt Day.  (Really.  It's a thing.)

Anyway, about a year ago, I became obsessed with bundt cake after finding this amazing blog:  The Food Librarian, created by Mary, an amazing baker and librarian in California.  Like myself, she likes cake and doesn't care much for frosting; hence, the bundts.  And who can resist all those pretty pans?

Almost every year, Mary celebrates November by baking bundts, sometimes, a different one every single day.  This year, she's giving a way a new bundt pan to anyone who posts about a bundt they made -- and how could I resist?  So Monday morning I made this cake and brought it to work:

This is a Malted Milk Chocolate Cake from the Beekman 1802 Heritage Dessert Cookbook by Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge (also known as the Beekman Boys, goat farmers and winners of last year's Amazing Race).  I love chocolate and I love malted milk balls, so I thought this would be a fun recipe to try.  The original recipe called for a 9 x 13 baking pan, but I thought it would make a fun bundt.  (Those lumps on the cake are bits of chopped malted milk balls).

Well, yes and no.  At first I was going to bake it in my largest 12-cup bundt pan, which is stoneware, then I realized it would never be finished in time for me to get to work.  I pulled it out of the oven after just a minute and scraped most of the batter into the smaller 10-inch Heritage bundt pan; the rest I baked into a teeny 3-cup bundt pan.  (I left this for my kids to eat since I was taking the larger bundt to work).  Well, it was nearly a disaster -- the batter puffed up and overflowed from the small bundt and burned all over the bottom of the oven.  The recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1 teaspoon of baking soda, which is a LOT -- I was worried that it was a printing error and that the whole thing would be a disaster.  And that I would be late to work.

Well, fifteen minutes before I had to leave, I checked the cakes again, and they were both finished (the small one should have been done much quicker, which was odd).  I pulled them from the oven and they were cooled enough to turn out of the pans with five minutes to spare before I jumped in the car with my beautiful warm cake.  It was delicious, rich and chocolatey with little chunks of malted milk balls.   Now everyone at work thinks I am a hero because I brought warm chocolate cake.  There was barely a scrap left by the end of the day.

So thanks, Mary, for inspiring me to make this cake, and thank you Beekman Boys for your beautiful new cookbook!  I'll be back to blogging about books next time.

Baking Cakes in San Antonio

This past weekend was my daughter's school carnival.  Though I am unwilling to spend two hours manning an unshaded booth on a hot Texas afternoon, I am willing to provide something for the cakewalk.  Possibly inspired by my previous read, Baking Cakes in Kigali, and by my recent discovery of the hilarious blog Cake Wrecks -- and if you have not seen this blog, please, do yourself a favor and visit immediately -- I decided to bake a cake.  From scratch.  No last-minute trips to the grocery store bakery or boxed-mix cakes from me, no sirree!  Even though I would most likely never meet the lucky recipient of my handiwork, I pulled out one of my family's tried and true favorite recipes.  It has no name, it is just the Good Chocolate Cake.  It is quick and easy, and mighty tasty.  [Disclaimer: the above is not an actual photo of said cake, but it's pretty close.]  Sadly, my children did not win our own cake in the cakewalk, so instead they were awarded a dozen Wal-Mart cupcakes.  They had cute plastic Halloween rings on top, but other than that they were pointless calories. (Well, at least they weren't Cake Wrecks.) Luckily, I bought enough ingredients to make another cake. 

I think this cake recipe originally came from Food & Wine, but it's been so long that I have no idea.  If you know the origin of this recipe, please let me know so I can give the appropriate credit. 

It's kind of an unusual recipe -- you don't cream the butter or fold anything in, but you boil water and sugar together until dissolved, then pour it over chopped unsweetened chocolate and butter.  The batter is really thin and the crumb isn't the most delicate I've ever eaten, but it has great flavor and is one of those quick and dirty recipes necessary when you need something both fast and impressive.  And the frosting, your basic ganache, brings the cake to a higher level.  When in doubt, heavy cream is your friend.  Always.

Excellent Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
6 Tb unsalted butter.
1 tsp vanilla.
2 eggs, lightly beaten

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 8-inch cake pans. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

2. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Bring to a boil over high heat and stir until the sugar dissolves, then pour into a large bowl. Add the butter and chocolate. Stir occasionally until melted and slightly cooled, and add the vanilla.

3.  Beat the eggs into the chocolate mixture at medium speed until combined. Add the dry ingredients all at once and beat at medium speed until smooth.

4.  Divide batter evenly between pans and smooth the tops. Bake about 25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans about 25 minutes, the invert on a rack to cool completely.


Frost with Chocolate Ganache:
8 oz heavy cream -- do NOT substitute milk or half and half.  Don't even think about it.
12 oz chocolate chips (1 bag)

1.   Place chips in a mixing bowl.  Use the best quality chips you can find.  Guittard and Ghirardelli are good chioices. Nestle is passable but not nearly as good -- buy a bag of each and do a taste-test.  You will not look back.

2.   Bring the cream to a boil in a small sauce pan (careful, it will boil over the minute you look away). Tip: rinse the pan with water, but don't dry it, before you heat the cream.  It will be much easier to clean afterward.  Nonstick pans are also recommended.

3.   Let the cream and chocolate stand for 5 minutes, then stir until smooth. Don't wait too long, or the cream will cool and you'll have tiny lumps.  Let the mixture stand until thickened. Will frost one 8 or 9-inch layer cake, a 9x13 cake, or a batch of cupcakes. Any leftovers can be chilled to make truffles, heated to dip fruit, or on top of ice cream. Or straight off the spoon.

Laurie Colwin and Chocolate Pear Pudding

The past week or so it's actually been cool enough in Texas to think about turning on the oven, so for dinner I cooked the Tiny Thanksgiving: a 3-lb Butterball turkey roast (comes with a gravy packet); glazed carrots, green bean casserole, and corn. And since it's fall, and pears are in season, I was able to make one of my favorite homey desserts: Chocolate Pear Pudding from Laurie Colwin's excellent book, More Home Cooking.

For those of you who don't know her work, Laurie Colwin was a fiction writer and food essayist who died suddenly at the age of 48. She wrote several novels and collections of short stories, but may be best known for her food columns in Gourmet. More Home Cooking, her second book of food essays with recipes, was published posthumously. They are witty and charming, and her writing style is so easy and accessible, it's like she's sitting in the kitchen talking to you. Her novels and short stories are also wonderful, but I'll have to blog about those later.

In her essay, In Praise of Pears, Laurie includes the Chocolate Pear Pudding, which is not an American-style custard pudding, but a British baked pudding. For lovers of British literature like myself, this is what characters are referring to when they say, "What's for pudding?" Colwin is a big fan of British cookbooks, and writes that this recipe comes from Josceline Dimbleby's Book of Puddings, Desserts and Savouries. It's out of print, but copies are available from the online bookseller Alibris and from Amazon.co.uk.

It's an easy and wonderful fall dessert. The pudding itself is fluffy and cakelike, and the soft baked pears at the bottom are a tender surprise. Apples would be inappropriate in a chocolate dessert, but the pears are subtle and delicious.

One of the ingredients in this dessert is Lyle's Golden Syrup -- golden treacle, to be specific. Those of you who are Harry Potter fans will now have two reasons to purchase a can or jar of treacle. You an make a treacle tart, (Harry's favorite dessert) and still have enough left over to make this wonderful dessert. It's available at well-stocked grocery stores and specialty gourmet or British stores.

Chocolate Pear Pudding

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

For the pears:
1 lb pears (about 4) peeled, cored and cut into chunks
2 Tb white sugar
2 TB butter

Butter a baking dish and fill the bottom with pears. Sprinkle with sugar and dot with butter, just like a fruit pie.

Next, mix the batter:

3/4 cup flour
1 heaping TB cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup brown sugar (scant)
2 TB Lyle's Golden Syrup
1 large egg, beaten
4 TB melted butter
1/4 cup milk

Beat this into a batter and pour it on top of the pears. Bake about 45 minutes or until a pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

You can eat this hot or cold, and it's excellent served with ice cream.