Deadliest of deadly chocolate cakes...

Yesterday was the double whammy of family events--my dad's birthday and my mother's graduation--and I was called upon to prepare a dark, dark, DARK chocolate cake for my mother. Counting on the tried and true classic chocolate cake on the back of the Hershey's box, I adjusted it slightly, resulting in a sinfully dark chocolate raspberry layer cake. Recipe follows:

Cake:
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar or other sweetener (I used half brown, half white sugar)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup ricotta cheese or sour cream (optional)
2 cups flour
3/4 cup Dark Cocoa (i.e. Hershey's special dark or other dutch processed cocoa powder)
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups water
1 ounce dark semi-sweet baker's chocolate or chocolate chips.
Preheat oven to 350.
1. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy and light, an off-white color.
2. Add eggs (one at a time) and vanilla and sour cream/ricotta if using (I used ricotta to great effect.) Beat until well combined.
3. In a small bowl, sift together dry ingredients.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet in 3 batches, alternating with the water until well combined.
5. Add the chocolate (chopped or chips) to the batter and stir well to mix in.
6. Pour mixture into two greased 8 or 9 inch round baking pans. I also like to use parchment paper to line the pans, which helps me to move them when I am assembling the cake.

Bake for 30-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the cakes comes out clean. For more even layers, cut off the tops of each cake so that the top is completely flat.

Icing:

I used a simple ganache to ice this cake, which comes from Dorie Greenspan's fabulous book "Baking: From My Home to Yours." I cut up four ounces of baking chocolate (semi sweet) in a heat-proof bowl. Then I heated 1 cup of heavy cream in a saucepan and added it to the chocolate, stirring in a few tablespoons of butter as the glaze melted and settled. Unfortunately, my ganache came out a bit too liquid, so I ended up adding some cornstarch and cocoa to it to thicken it. But before that, I spread some of the liquidier glaze on the layers to soak into the cake and moisten it (probably not necessary as it was already quite moist.)

Glaze:

After soaking the inside parts of each layer with the more liquid form of the ganache, I spread a thick layer of raspberry jam (preheated for a few minutes in the microwave to loosen it up) on both layers and assembled the cake with the two trimmed tops facing one another. This left a piece of parchment paper on the top and bottom of the cake, which proved useful in transporting it from a cooling rack to a cake plate.

The total effect is wonderful--a deep chocolately icing, covering a very soft, delicate chocolate cake with a thin trace of raspberry/chocolate moistness in the center.

Who knew hershey's could do it so right??

FORFEIT: a hot mess

Hi all,

Just took the cake out of the oven and guess what!! It was a mess!

Actually, I should re-state that. The top was a mess. The bottom was perfect! The bottom cake was moist and buttery and soft and everything a cake should be. The top, however, was completely carmelized and stuck to the pan, ruining my (now burnt) design. it would have been salvageable in a surrealist world where black is a fruit color and burnt sugar is a flavor (oh wait....)

In any case, I'm now thinking my mistake was cooking the brown sugar too long. So if you make this, try decreasing the amount of cook time so that the sugar/butter mix doesn't reduce and stick to the pan like mine did. But definitely try out the dough mix if you want a delicious, light, and not-too-sweet base for your upside down cake!

Surrendering to Alex,

Jenny

Upside Down Cake Bake-off

Hi all,

So today's excitement is an UPSIDE DOWN CAKE BAKE-OFF competetion between me and my friend Alex (http://farcefodderandfoodstuffs.wordpress.com .) I got excited because my mom bought some really aesthetically impressive dried apricots and cranberries, so I decided I had to make a dessert to feature them (this is how my brain works--its not enough to just enjoy the apricots as they are..they MUST be combined with some sort of pastry to truly reach their potential.)

So here's the recipe I'm trying...it's in the oven as we speak, so results will follow!

Bottom of the Cake:
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ginger (of course!!)
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
scant 1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. Beat together egg, milk, sour cream, sugar, and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients and mix until batter takes on a very smooth consistency (like pancake batter.)

Topping:
3/4 stick butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
apricots and cranberries (dried)

In a cast iron skillet, melt the butter. Add brown sugar, stir once, and let cook for about 3 minutes without stirring. Arrange cranberries and apricots in a design of your choosing on the surface of the pan with the part you want visible bottom down in the butter sugar mixture. Cook for 2-3 minutes on low heat.

Add batter to the skillet, and put in preheated oven (350) for approximately 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Enjoy!!!

Pyrrhic victory!

The lemon squares have been accomplished, with pretty good results. I wish I had remembered to take my digital camera charger home from school with me--sadly, there are no pictures. So the shortbread crust worked out really well, except that it was extremely fragile and crumbled a bit. I'm not sure how to fix this next time--I'm thinking maybe less butter? If you have tips, let me know.

I also made some adaptations for the filling. To start with, I used 1/2 brown and 1/2 granulated sugar. Then I infused the sugar with ginger and lemon zest. For those of you not familiar with infusing sugar, it basically just means rubbing the things you want to take the flavors of into the sugar with your fingertips. This spreads the flavors throughout the pastry instead of concentrating them in small morsels, so it basically just intensifies everything. Why ginger? Because a. I like it, b. that's what this blog is called, and c. lemon and ginger is a tried and true combo that's never failed me before. I tasted this concoction and it wasn't quite ginger-y enough though. So I added an extra tablespoon of ginger. I also added 1/2 tsp baking soda, to see if it might help the whole thing aerate--fluffy lemon bars are the best of all.

The results:

My two taste-testers concluded that the lemon bars were not too sweet with just enough lemon. ("I think these are the way lemon bars used to taste before they got made into the lemon bars we know today" says my dad, in what I perceive to be a compliment.)The shortbread was generally liked by all--I particularly enjoyed the dry, buttery taste with the lemon on top...besides the lost crumbs (ergo the title of this entry, Pyrrhic victory.) Unfortunately, despite my efforts to intensify the ginger flavor, neither of my taste testers could tell it was there at all (neither could I, oddly enough.) C'est la vie.

So that's all folks. I'd definitely recommend the recipes in the original post, but adding extra flavors (i.e. zest and juice of two whole lemons, ginger, etc.) is where its at.

Enjoy!