cake 19 whiskey spiked chocolate cake, the wicked and the damned

posted a preview photo of the wicked and the damned cake on facebook, where it quickly earned a following.

the clever name was a mis-typing. The blogger at Poires au Chocolat, where this cake originates, created her gorgeous version of this grown-up cake for an art competition themed The Beautiful and the Damned. She entered a cake—brilliant, brilliant—inspired by 20s era America. As she writes:

“Do not be fooled by the innocent exterior of this cake: underneath the chocolate Art Nouveau design and the cloud of all-American vanilla buttercream lies a dark, dense chocolate cake soaked with whisky and sandwiched with an intense chocolate and thick cream ganache spiked with more whisky. It is a cake for the prohibition, a wicked core hidden underneath a respectable façade.”

and quotes:

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Nick’s thoughts, while drunk on whisky)

love anyone who works out a cake around a narrative and her nouveau styled chocolate décor glamorizes the potent interior; hidden evil and all that.

in the radical muffin kitchen, however, we were making 3 sets of cake and did not, at this time, pipe out intricate chocolate designs. We went for a more blatantly slatternly look, with whiskey saturated ganache oozing wantonly out the sides, and buttercream piped in starbursts glittering on top. Given this and the comments on facebook—Lawd-a-mercy!; You are my soulmate.; That’s like five of the seven deadly sins baked into one cake! (if you eat it while having sex, maybe you can get up to six?)—the wicked and the damned seems to suit this version.

the cake is genoise-ish European style, dry for soaking with syrup. Heat the oven to 350° and line cake pans with parchment paper and butter them. We used three small heart pans, trimming the tops off two cakes for the bottom layers. The top slices to be repurposed.

melt 300 grams of dark chocolate. This is a lot of chocolate, and we admit to dashing up to the neighbor’s kitchen to use the microwave rather than our typical bowl on a pan of water method. If you take the slow road, chop your chocolate up to make it go a bit quicker.  Let rest and cool while making the rest of the batter.

cream together 1 cup/2 sticks of soft butter with a cup and a half of sugar; we used ½ white and ½ turbinado sugars. Beat in 5 eggs (room temperature) one at a time then beat the lot until creamy and golden. Sift in 1 ¼ teaspoon of baking powder, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and 1 ½ cups of flour—we used 1 cup of all purpose and ½ cup of cake flour and snuck in 2 tablespoons of dutch processed cocoa. Stir in the melted and cooled chocolate.

pour the batter into the awaiting cake pans and bake for about half an hour, checking at 21 minutes and depending on the size of your cake pans. Let cool in the pans a few minutes and turn out to cool completely.

in a small saucepan, simmer together a cup and a half of whiskey and ½ a cup of sugar until the liquid reduces in half and thickens. Pour into a measuring cup and let cool completely. Stir in another ¾ cup of whiskey. We used a really beautiful golden honey whiskey.

drizzle the boozy syrup over the cakes (trimmed as you like). Thus soaked, the cakes can be wrapped and stashed in the freezer or fridge until wanted. Or forge right ahead.

melt 10 ounces dark chocolate with ½ a cup of heavy cream over low heat, stirring until smooth. Let cool just a bit and splash in some whiskey – about ¼ cup.  Slowly pour and spread over the bottom layer. Let set a moment and top with middle cake. Pour and spread the remaining ganache over this layer. Let set a moment and top with the final layer.

in a big glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together one egg white with a ½ cup of white sugar until shiny white and warm to the touch. Remove from the stovetop. Scrape in the innards of a vanilla bean and beat in ¾ a stick of butter. Add confectioners sugar if needed to reach a thick, pipe-able consistency.

frost the top as pleases you. We made these little starry puffballs one by one, beginning at the center and working our way to the edges. Had just enough frosting, which is a nice change of having a whole container of left over frosting.

serve to seduce.

 

cake 18 orange upside down cake eleganza*

caramelizing fruit and baking in a cast iron skillet, to make an upside down cake is a perfect fit for radical muffin sensibilities. Pineapple is classic, of course, but the possibilities are vast. In the winter markets, citrus is reigning, so we piled perfect blood oranges, pink oranges and baby oranges still dressed in their leaves into the basket to carry home to become cake.

when we were in high school, the vending machine outside the cafeteria held shiny wrapped rolls of Daily-C. Someone from our table would buy a roll—an offering— bring it back to the table, and pass it round: “Don’t get scurvy,” we’d say, like a blessing. Spin-off humor from some horror story in history class; popping the vitamins like candy.

if it’s oranges it must be good for you—not to be confused with food group orange, comprised of the orange things like Doritos, nacho cheese and Crush—so we recommend this cake for breakfast. Mimosas or Bellinis at brunch elevate it to eleganza, yes?

five small oranges provided enough rounds for an 8-inch skillet. Slice the peel from the fruit and reserve it for something else like hot toddies or mulled wine; throw them in a bag in the freezer if not using right away. With a long serrated bread knife, slice the oranges into thin wheels.

separate 4 cold eggs and let them hang out to warm up.

melt 4 tablespoons of butter with ¾ cup of light brown sugar in a cast iron skillet and bubble away for about 3 minutes. If you have them, a few crushed cardamom seeds added now and picked out later are lovely. Allow to rest a few minutes then lay the fruit in concentric circles in the pan. Heat the oven to 350°.

the cake recipe we used called for a 10-inch skillet. We meant to pour off some of the batter as cupcakes but forgot. The utterly full pan baked up just fine, and although the cake to fruit ratio was greater, the cake is delicious and no one is complaining.

sift together 1 ½ cups of all purpose flour, 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder and ¼ teaspoon salt. Cream together a stick of soft butter and ½ cup white and ½ cup turbinado sugar. Beat in the egg yolks. Grate in the zest of an orange and a lime.  Beat in the sifted flour along with 3 tablespoons of cornmeal and 2/3 cup of milk.

clean your beaters scrupulously, and whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold half of the egg whites into the batter then carefully fold in the other half. Pour the batter over the fruit, smooth and bake for about 45 minutes, until the cake is golden and set.

let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then turn out onto a plate. You want to flip it while it is still a bit warm or all that gooey, caramel fruit will stick to the pan. Boooooooo….

with a successful flip—cake self decorated with gloriously sugared fruit. Relax and enjoy.

*in nod to the new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race xoxo

cake 17 first cake of 2013 – caramel

when buttermilk cake is not the thing to do then caramel cake generally is. Unless, of course, you want chocolate, but we’ll get to that.

straight forward cake made with brown sugar; simplicity belies the complexity of awesomeness of the final dessert. Adopted from Moosewood Restaurant new classics (2001). We’ve made this as cupcakes, layer cake filled with chocolate ganaché, and, most often, an elegant single layer with satiny perfect icing dusted with sea salt and glitter.

preheat the oven to 350°. Line the bottom with parchment paper and butter two pans equivalent of 9-inch rounds.

cream together 1 cup of soft unsalted butter and 2 cups of brown sugar in any combination: light, dark, turbinado, golden bakers. Beat in 5 eggs one at a time, breaking each egg into a small bowl to ensure its fresh and shell free before adding to the batter. Measure out ¾ cup of milk with vanilla if you like. Add to the batter and sift in 2 ½ cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Just combine and pour into your waiting pans.

bake for half an hour or so, until golden and well set in the center. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes before turning out on a rack to cool completely.

for the icing, melt together 3 tablespoons of butter, 2 cups of brown sugar, 1 cup cream or half-and-half and a shot of vanilla or scraping of a bean. Cover and bring to a rolling boil, stirring often, then let it be for 3 minutes or so. Uncover and cook, stirring, until the caramel thickens up, about 5 minutes.

pour into a large bowl and beat beat beat until thick and creamy, cool and spreadable. Settle in and be patient; this takes about 10 minutes. Pour slowly and smooth over the cool cakes.

to welcome the new year, we just piped on chocolate melted and thinned with whiskey.

cake 16 last cupcakes of the year

weird sugar. that’s all – to practice weird sugar, I made cupcakes. A two-day commitment, including dinner in the workshop – that’s a chili of three white beans there – to form the birds (!) and hearts and stars in royal icing and let them harden. Then the cakes…

buttermilk cake is the thing to do most of the time.

see fondant is fabulous and Viking cake.

for these little buggers, I subbed in greek yogurt and fresh cream, about ½ cup yogurt and ¼ cup of cream, for the buttermilk. thus no longer buttermilk cake technically but it is the same recipe ever changing. love it.

pre-heat the oven to 375° and line muffin tins with papers. We used one regular sized muffin pan and one mini-muffin pan, each holding a dozen muffins.

cream a stick of soft butter with 1 cup of white sugar until really light and fluffy. Beat in 2 large eggs and the yogurt-cream. Scrape in the seeds of a vanilla bean and the zest of two small oranges and a lemon. We used blood oranges, squeezing in just a bit of juice too. Sift in 1 ½ cups of cake flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon baking soda and salt.

spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each ¾ way . Bake for approximately 15 minutes for mini-muffins and 20 minutes for the larger size.

let cool completely.

whip up buttercream, simple: one stick of soft butter, two cups sifted powdered sugar, vanilla bean seeds and orange zest, adding a bit of orange juice to thin as needed.

The blood orange juice turns the icing a pale sunset peach color, fairy cake pretty with the flecks of vanilla and finished later with glitter. Beat beat beat until fluffy as a kitten.

the large cupcakes are piped with buttercream in a spiral through a star tip. Some of the small cakes are piped with tiny buttecream starbursts, and some are dipped in thin royal icing.

it was only in the photo shoot that I realized these are the cupcakes bidding adieu to this year. i am grateful for the exceptional gifts it has brought me. thank you for gracing my virtual kitchen with your reading.

may you eat well, with much joy.

xmas cassoulet

when composing holiday meals the pull toward the picturesque and poetic is irresistible. Acknowledging i always feel their pull rather strongly. Yet nothing haute or too bizarre is wanted; homey, delicious, hearty something that fills the whole house with yummy fug* as it cooks. So the big red pan wanted a casserole. Saying it in French feels festive so a cassoulet.

be undaunted, Muffins! Cassoulet may be known as one of Julia Child’s most fearsome dishes (the NYT lists it among her 3 most elaborate recipes), but Monsieur Diat is more like – ain’t no big thing. He explains, “It is kind of bean stew. Garlic is essential…”

its countryside peasant roots promise it can be simple if you let it be and inclined toward adapting to whatever you have on hand. The stand-offish ingredient is confit of something, often duck (de canard). To confit is to salt cure a piece of meat then poach it in its own fat. Madame Child will march you through that process if you like along with her 22 ingredients for casserole, and butchers can hand over a block of the stuff. Although we went to an awesome butcher (see the facebook notes for a snapshot of Paisanos), we skipped the confit altogether, and instead went for a whole chicken cut up into pieces and chicken sausage with apples and congac. Sausage is signature, but chicken is unorthodox. Goose, duck, pork and lamb are the more likely candidates. I image, however, in some little French kitchen some lovely cook has assembled just such a chicken cassoulet. Also Mark Bittman says that with cassoulet, “liberties should not be viewed as inadequacies.”

some writers also cite the “many steps” as difficulty, but the process is quite simple: soak & cook beans, chop a bunch of veggies, sauté things in order, beginning with your meat, then throw it all in the oven to finish.

soak and cook white beans; in this instance, flagolet, though cannellini beans or the like are also charming. We cooked the wee things with fresh bay leaf, rosemary stalks and plenty of sea salt.

rub the chicken with butter that has been run through a food processor with herbes de provence and fresh rosemary needles, salt and pepper. Sauté the pieces in a giant hot pan with a bit of olive oil and branches of fresh rosemary and thyme. Set aside. Slice and sauté the sausage; set aside with the chicken.

heat the oven to 375°. Chop one onion, a few carrots, and a few stalks of celery. Peel and smash the cloves of a fist of garlic. Sauté the onion then add the celery then the carrot then the garlic. Toss in the cooked white beans, about 4 or 5 cups, and stir to mix. Scoop out a generous cup. Lay in the chicken pieces and sausage over the beans, surrounding with the reserved beans. Pour over some booze; we used champagne. White wine or vermouth will work.

blanket the lot with about a cup of breadcrumbs combined with ½ cup of crushed walnuts, a bit of herbes de provence, salt and pepper. Dot the top with butter and bake about 10 minutes or until the top browns. I finished it with about 3 minutes under the broiler.

satisfying to heave a heavy pan of delicousness out of the oven to serve to mom and thrifty wanderlust, who made the jam sandwiches for the trifle.

trifle is just assembly since we did not bake cake. Store bought panetone, a bready fruited Italian Christmas cake, served as our base. We cut thin slices and made sandwiches raspberry and kumquat jam then cut them into cubes. The cake is layered with fruit and fresh whipped cream topped with pistachios and glitter.

for the fruit, we broiled peach halves and pink orange segments coated in turbinado sugar and lemon and soaked bits of dried apricot in brandy.

*domestic fug: oven and stovetop steamy, domestic heaven scent

midwestern fck all cookies

sometimes you’ve got to have it all. Like when your city is storm ravaged, and perhaps at its most New York. Everything altogether at once; dirty and busted looking but wholesome and voluptuous and dynamic. Slightly addictive. Like these cookies.

i’ve been tucked in the radical muffin kitchen, grateful for power and good stores and a little help from the up-stairs neighbor.

adopted from Midwestern Living magazine, Lindsay’s Chocolate Cafe Chocolate Chip Cookies, this recipe makes a lot of dough. If you are not making a batch for storm relief, bake sale, or other event wanting dozens of cookies then freeze some to bake later. Freeze cookie dough balls on whatever flat thing you have that will fit in your freezer. Pop the frozen balls into a bag or bin and have fresh baked cookies at your beck and call. Or eat the dough out of the freezer at 2 in the morning. Whatever.

grate 4 ounces of a milk chocolate bar, frozen. Chop and toast 1 ½ cups of nuts; we used almonds.

cream two soft sticks of butter with 2 cups of sugar in some combination of white, browns, turbinado, etc. I used 1 cup of white sugar, ½ cup of light brown sugar and ½ cup of turbinado. Beat in 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon of vanilla or the innards of a vanilla bean. Beat in 2 ½ cups of oats, 1 ¾ cup all purpose flour, and ¼ hazelnut meal (or as much flour or other nutmeal) also 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda and ½ teaspoon of salt.

stir in the nuts and grated chocolate with 2 cups of chips—we used 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate and 1 cup of peanut butter chips.

intended to be Big, 3 tablespoon sized blobs are called for in the magazine; we went with regular cookie sized blobs on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

bake in batches at 375˚ for about 9 minutes, until the edges brown. Let cool on the cookie sheet a bit, watch to be sure the centers are fully set.

and, yes, these are good for breakfast.

cake 15 pear up-side down cake

caramelize: to convert or be converted into caramel.

i expected, somehow, the definition to be as powerful as the act, and laughed how I felt disappointed in the meager description.

to caramelize – to transform raw sugars into deep, crackle-crusted, butter-rich, glistening gorgeousness; to bring sugar to the brink of burnt, revealing its richest expression of sweetness.

when you roast veggies, the sugars caramelize, delivering fuller flavor of the vegetable itself and crisped, browned edges.

when you make caramel for desserts, you bring simple syrup through a gentle boiling from clear to amber darker and darker as you please.

for this pear up-side down cake—a local, seasonal iteration of the more salient pineapple; not unreminiscent of tarte tatin—whisk together 2 tablespoons of water and ¼ cup of sugar in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and swirl the pan once in awhile for 8 -10 minutes. Now is a moment for kitchen mindfulness. Don’t wander away and let the syrup burn: you will have to start over and your pan will be a mess. when the sugar is a deep amber, turn off the heat and swirl in a tablespoon of butter.

heat the oven to 350˚. Line a 9-inch round baking pan with a circle of parchment paper and butter the lot. Pour the caramel into the pan and swirl to coat the bottom.

slice 4 or 5 Seckel pears (or 2 or 3 large pears like Bartlett) thinly; easily done on a mandoline. Lay pears slices in a pretty overlapping pattern in the caramel.

whisk together ¾ cup plus 3 tablespoons of flour, 3 heaping tablespoons of hazelnut meal, 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

separate two eggs: the whites into a big bowl and the yolks into a smaller one. Beat the egg whites until frothy all the way through.

cream together a softened stick of butter and ¾ cup of sugar. Beat in the egg yolks. Grate in an inch or so of fresh ginger. Beat in the dry ingredients alternately with ½ cup of whole milk. Gently fold in the egg whites. Scoop and scrape the batter over the pears, smoothing the top. Pop in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until the cake is golden brown and springy.

let cool for half an hour or so before attempting to remove from the pan. Cut around the sides with a knife and flip onto a plate. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream to be fancy; eat for breakfast as is.