I Should Have Stayed Out of the Liquor Cabinet: Pomegranate Bavarian

While I am very good at following recipes written by other people, I am not at all skilled at creating my own. I rarely even play around with a recipe in any substantive fashion -- I might do a little tweaking around the margins, but I usually treat recipes as static; if I'm not satisfied with the results, I just move on and look for another.

However, after making a series of desserts that consisted of cakes and either mousse or Bavarian cream assembled in a cake ring (e.g., chocolate Bavarian torte, chocolate raspberry Bavarian cake, strawberry streusel cake, rhubarb-mascarpone mousse cake), it dawned on me that you can put just about any cake together with any flavor of stabilized cream in a cake ring and get a nice-looking dessert. I decided to adapt Nick Malgieri's recipe for "Passion-Fruit Bavarian Cream Cake" from Perfect Cakes -- which has a base of sponge cake topped with a layer of passion fruit Bavarian cream and a passion fruit gelatin glaze -- to make a pomegranate dessert.

The sponge cake component is Malgieri's biscuit recipe (I've made the biscuit before as part of the strawberry streusel cake from the same cookbook) that contains eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt, and cake flour. You spread the batter into a circle on a piece of parchment to bake. After the cake was baked and cooled, I trimmed it into a 9-inch circle.

The Bavarian cream recipe includes a passion fruit puree that you make by heating and slightly reducing water, sugar, and either fresh passion fruit juice or frozen passion fruit puree. You chill the puree and then mix in gelatin that has been softened in rum and dissolved by heating it in a double boiler. Finally, you fold in whipped cream. I simply substituted pomegranate juice for the passion fruit juice in the puree and I added a little extra sugar because 100% pomegranate juice is quite tart. I also substituted Chambord -- black raspberry liqueur -- for the rum because: 1) I really don't like the taste of rum, and 2) I had the Chambord on hand and I figured that the black raspberry flavor would be relatively close to, or at least harmonious with, pomegranate (there is such a thing as pomegranate liqueur, but I didn't want to buy some just to make this cake).

Because the mixture of gelatin dissolved in Chambord was hot, I put the pomegranate puree back into the refrigerator after I added the gelatin so that it could chill for a few minutes while I whipped the cream. I didn't think it would be a good idea to try to fold whipped cream into a warm liquid. Unfortunately, during the very brief time I put the pomegranate puree-gelatin mixture in the refrigerator, the gelatin began to set up. Thus, when I folded in the whipped cream, there were actually small bits of pomegranate gelatin in the Bavarian cream -- you can see some of them in the picture below.

I didn't bother adapting the recipe's formulation for the passion fruit glaze (which consists of gelatin, water, passion fruit puree, and apple jelly), but simply made a straightforward pomegranate gelatin from the pomegranate puree and powdered gelatin.

To assemble the cake, I put the 9-inch biscuit layer inside a 10-inch cake ring and brushed the cake layer with a mixture of simple syrup and Chambord. Then I poured on the pomegranate Bavarian cream. I put the cake in the fridge for a couple of hours to let the cream layer set up, and then poured on the pomegranate gelatin and chilled the cake until the gelatin set.

The cake was beautiful and the color of the pomegranate gelatin mirror on top was particularly striking. I was a little dismayed about the random bits of gelatin that ended up in the Bavarian cream layer, but I still think the sliced cake was quite attractive. When I tasted the cake, I was surprised that it wasn't more pomegranate-y. The cake layer tasted strongly of Chambord, as did the Bavarian cream layer. The gelatin layer did taste like pomegranate (quite similar to cranberry), but because it was so thin, it was dominated by the flavor in the other two layers. In short, the Chambord took over the cake and I really regret using it.

It's not that I didn't enjoy the cake -- the biscuit was moist, the cream layer was light and lovely, and the cake was actually quite tasty. It's just that I was really hoping the cake would taste like pomegranate. I would like to give the pomegranate version of this cake another try without the Chambord. I'd also like to experiment with other fruits. I think the combination of cake + Bavarian cream + gelatin is a winning formula, in any flavor!

Recipe: Adapted from "Passion Fruit Bavarian Cream Cake" in Nick Malgieri's Perfect Cakes.

Previous Posts:

• "A Measure of Rhubarb Redemption: Rhubarb-Mascarpone Mousse Cake," June 20, 2012.
• "Like Cheesecake, but Lighter and Upside Down: Strawberry Streusel Cake," May 3, 2012.
• "It's All About the Bavarians: Chocolate Raspberry Bavarian Cake," April 3, 2012.
• "I Liked It and I Put a Ring on It: Chocolate Bavarian Torte," January 18, 2012.

Let's Just Call It a Fig Bar: Fig Bars with Thyme

To use up my remaining fig supply, I decided to try a recipe from Fine Cooking for Fig Bars with Thyme. I was intrigued by the combination of fig with thyme, as I often find desserts with herbs to be quite interesting.

These bars are filled with a fig jam that you make by cooking chopped figs with sugar and thyme until the fruit is tender and the juices have reduced, pulling out the thyme sprigs, and then adding lemon zest and lemon juice. The recipe says it should only take about 20 minutes to cook the fruit, but it took me about 40 minutes to get the juices reduced enough so that the mixture was not too runny. I made the jam a day in advance and kept it in the refrigerator.

You make the base of these bars by combining flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, butter, egg yolk, and vanilla in the food processor. You press two-thirds of the dough into the bottom of a pan and bake it until lightly browned. Then you spread on the fig jam, crumble on a mixture of the remaining dough, sugar, and ground walnuts, and bake.

It was actually a bit difficult to see the layer of fig jam in the middle of these bars -- even though it was quite thick -- because the light colored figs I used created a pinkish-orange jam that didn't provide much color contrast from the bar base and crumb topping. I really loved these bars. The base had the perfect firm texture, the fig jam was bright and sweet, and golden crunchy nuggets of buttery crumbs were simply the bomb. However, I was disappointed that there was no detectable thyme flavor at all in the fig layer, even though I used the specified amount (and the thyme couldn't have been fresher; Tom picked it from our herb garden moments before I made the jam).

I also encountered a serious problem when it came to storing the bars. The recipe didn't provide any storage guidelines, so I left the bars at room temperature. The bars become horribly soggy after a few hours at room temperature, to the point where a bar wouldn't even hold together if someone tried to pick it up. Refrigeration was a necessity keep them from turning into a hot mess.

Despite the lack of thyme-i-ness, I would absolutely make these bars again. The refrigeration requirement is not terribly convenient, but it's definitely worth the trouble to preserve these sweet delights.

Recipe: "Fig Bars with Thyme" from Fine Cooking Cookies, recipe available here at seriouseats.com.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Heartland Turtle Bars

When I first got my copy of Baked Explorations almost two years ago, the very first recipe I tried was a complete home run -- the sweet and salty brownie. Unfortunately, I was not as thrilled with my second recipe selection: Heartland Turtle Bars, an oatmeal bar filled with caramel, chocolate, and pecans. I thought that the bars were too buttery and I never made them again... until now, because they came up on the Baked Sunday Mornings schedule.

While I had always contemplated that if I ever made these bars again I would simply reduce the amount of butter in the bar base and topping (this is actually an explicit suggestion provided in the cookbook, along with the warning that the bars are quite buttery), I decided that instead I would make the recipe as written, but simply bake the bottom crust a bit more. I thought that some of excessive buttery-ness might have resulted form an underbaked crust last time.

The crust and topping are made from the same batter -- a mixture of flour, salt, baking soda, dark brown sugar, oats, and melted butter. You press two-thirds of the mixture into the bottom of a pan and bake it for about 10 minutes. To be on the safe side, I baked it for 15 minutes, and the top was just lightly golden around the edges.

Once the bottom crust is cool, you are supposed to sprinkle on chocolate chips and toasted pecans, and then spread on a caramel mixture made from butter, brown sugar, and cream. Last time I made the bars, spreading the hot caramel melted the chocolate chips underneath, so the middle layer became a homogeneous mixture of chocolatey caramel (you can see from the picture of the previous iteration of bars that they have what appears to be a solid layer of chocolate in the middle). This time I spread on the hot caramel first and then sprinkled the chocolate chips and pecan on top, followed by the remaining oatmeal mixture; the chocolate chips stayed intact as a result. The recipe says to bake the bars for an additional for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. I had to bake mine for close to 20 minutes before the top showed any significant color.

The bars definitely looked different this time around compared to my first effort. Besides having solid chocolate chips as opposed to a melted chocolate layer, this time the bars were considerably taller than before (I'm not really sure why). Baking the bottom crust a bit longer may have helped, because I thought these bars were slightly less buttery -- but make no mistake, this is a buttery dessert. I enjoyed the bars, but they are still not a personal favorite. Tom and I thought the bars would have benefited significantly from more caramel (although I don't think it makes any real difference taste-wise whether the chocolate chips are melted or not). For something called a "turtle bar," we both thought that there should be a thick layer of caramel goo in the middle. While these bars definitely have a caramel flavor to them, there was no discernible chewy caramel texture.

It's a beautiful bar and tasters enjoyed it, so I'll still chalk this one up in the win column.

Recipe: "Heartland Turtle Bars" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.

Previous Post: "There Is Such a Thing as Too Much Butter: Heartland Turtle Bars," October 12, 2010.

A Honey of a Sweet Sauce: A Fig Cake for Fall

Another recipe that I've been patiently holding onto until fig season is Dorie Greenspan's "A Fig Cake for Fall" from Baking: From My Home to Yours. This is a cornmeal cake topped by figs that have been poached in ruby port and honey; the poaching liquid is reduced into a sauce that is served with the cake.

I was a bit distracted when I made this cake (I was making two of these cakes at the same time I was making two fig frangipane tarts, so the cake didn't have my full attention), and I accidentally screwed up the poaching liquid. You are supposed to poach halved figs in a mixture of 3/4 cup ruby port, 1/2 cup honey, and a few lemon slices. I accidentally doubled the honey, so my liquid consisted of more honey than port. I poached the figs until they were soft, removed them from the pot, and then cooked the liquid until slightly thickened.

The cake batter is straightforward. You rub together sugar and lemon zest until the sugar is moist and aromatic, beat in room temperature butter, add eggs, honey, and vanilla, and incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt). You pour the batter into a 9-inch pan (you are supposed to use a springform pan; I used a cheesecake pan with a removable bottom), scatter the poached figs on top, and bake.

I served my cake the day after I baked it, and I kept my port sauce in the refrigerator overnight. The next day the chilled sauce was the exact color and consistency of grape jelly. It loosened up considerably after I stirred it vigorously, but it was still quite viscous. I'm sure the fact that I messed up the port-to-honey ratio affected the texture of the sauce.

My version of the cake did not look as good as the photo in the cookbook because the small figs I was using did not have vibrantly colored skins. Nonetheless, I was surprised at how much I liked this cake. The cake itself was rustic, with an interesting texture from the cornmeal and a distinct brightness from the lemon. Because the flavor of the cake was so straightforward, the delicate sweet flavor of the figs really came through. Even though the port sauce was quite thick and very sweet (the sweetness level obviously higher than it should have been due to my use of too much honey), it was a wonderful accompaniment to the cake. It tasted more or less like grape honey and it was delicious -- although definitely better when used in moderation, given its intense sweetness. I actually preferred this cake to the fig frangipane tart, in large part because it tasted more "figgy."

If I had used the proper amount of honey in the poaching liquid/sauce, I'm sure that the sauce would have been fantastic. I would love to make this cake and sauce again the next time I have some figs on hand.

Recipe: "A Fig Cake For Fall" from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.

Previous Post: "The Not-So-Figgy Fig Tart," August 21, 2012.

The Not-So-Figgy Fig Tart: Fig Frangipane Tart

Thanks to the largesse of a colleague with a fecund fig tree who lives nearby, I recently brought home an ample supply (over eight pounds) of beautiful figs. I had a recipe ready -- "Fig Frangipane Tart." I have made fig-almond tarts before, but I liked the fact that this recipe had the figs baked into the frangipane, instead of just laid out on top as a separate element.

The crust for this tart can be made in the mixer or the food processor. I used the food processor, since it was faster. You put flour, sugar, and salt in the food processor, and pulse while you add add chunks of chilled butter, more flour, and finally ice water. When the dough comes together, you form it into a disk and refrigerate it before rolling it out and lining the tart pan, followed by chilling, docking, and blind baking the crust. This dough was very easy to handle and the unbaked crust was flawless, although it did shrink a bit during baking despite my using pie weights. I also had to bake my crust for 20 minutes (twice the directed time) before it took on any color around the edges.

You fill the partially baked crust with a frangipane almond cream made by grinding almonds, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt, butter, and lemon zest in the food processor. You arrange quartered figs on top of the frangipane, pressing them into the mixture. You bake the tart until golden, and while it's still warm, you brush some thinned and heated honey onto the fruit so that it glistens.

The tart looks nothing like the one in the picture accompanying the recipe in the Los Angeles Times, but only because the figs from my friend's tree are small and green (the skins turn purplish-brown when ripe) with pink interiors.

The crust turned out nice and crisp, and the frangipane was rich and deliciously almond-y, with a lovely brightness from the lemon. My only complaint about this tart is that the flavor in the almond layer was so strong that it overpowered the figs; this particular variety of fig is very sweet, but also quite delicate. As a result, the tart wasn't very "figgy."

I'm such a big fan of almonds that I don't think I've ever met a frangipane tart that I didn't like -- and I'm sure this tart would be delicious with just about any type of fruit. That said, this recipe probably wasn't the best choice to showcase the mild flavor of these beautiful little figs. But I enjoyed every bite nonetheless!

Recipe: "Fig Frangipane Tart," from the August 26, 2009 Los Angeles Times.

Previous Posts:

• "Oh Bring Us a Figgy Tart: Fig and Almond Tart," August 16, 2010.
• "This Is How My Figs Roll: Homemade Fig Newtons," September 5, 2011.

A Little Too Dark, a Little Too Light: Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte

Another day, another office birthday, another cake! I decided to try Dorie Greenspan's Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte, a recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours that's been on my to-bake list for some time. The torte has a cookie crust covered in a layer of berry jam and topped with a mixture of cottage cheese and cream cheese "that bakes to a thin, velvety layer that inspires triple indulgences."

You make the cookie crust in the food processor from flour, sugar, salt, cold butter, egg yolks, and vanilla. Once the dough comes together, you can either immediately press it into a pan, or briefly chill and then roll it. I went the chill and roll route, and instead of the springform pan specified, I used a 9-inch cheesecake pan with a removable bottom. After you line the pan with the dough, you chill it again briefly and then blind bake it.

As I normally do when I blind bake crusts, I lined the crust with parchment paper before I put in the pie weights. When I took the baked crust out of the oven and tried to pull off the parchment paper and weights, the parchment paper was stuck to the crust in quite a few places, and some significant bits of dough came off when I removed the paper. That has never happened to me before, although I suppose I should have followed the recipe's instructions to cover the crust with buttered foil instead. Fortunately, the crust was still quite soft, and I was able to do a little bit of patching and repair simply by smoothing the crust over with the back of a metal spoon.

You spread a layer of berry jam (I used cherry) over the baked crust, and then pour on a topping made by blending cream cheese, cottage cheese, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and eggs in the food processor. You are supposed to bake the filled crust for 60-70 minutes, or until the filling is puffed and no longer jiggly. I checked the torte at the minimum time and was alarmed to see that the top was brown -- a background shade of golden brown covered with large and irregular very dark brown splotches. It appeared on the verge of being burnt. The torte pictured in the cookbook is a pristine ivory color that shows no browning whatsoever.

Despite its scorched appearance, the interior and crust of the torte were not overcooked. The crust was the best part -- a cripsy, buttery cookie that was a perfect base. The cherry flavor was not very strong and I think the torte would have benefited significantly from a fruit sauce or topping. The cream cheese-cottage cheese layer was mildly flavored, and much lighter in texture than a cheesecake -- combined with the fact that the cream cheese layer was so short, the dessert was fairly light overall. While I usually don't like the heaviness of a cheesecake, I thought this torte was missing a bit of the richness and decadent mouthfeel that I expect in a cream cheese dessert. All in all, the dessert was good, but not a standout.

Recipe: "Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte" from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.

The Caramel Is the Icing on the Icing: Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake with Caramel Rum Frosting

Recently I was looking for a recipe to bake something for a co-worker's birthday, and I wanted something a little different from the usual layer cake. I decided it was time to try the Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake with Caramel Rum Frosting from Baked Explorations. This showstopper cake caught my eye the very first time I saw the beautiful picture in the cookbook (the cookbook photo is the same one you can see here, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page).

The cake and the frosting both contain a "burnt sugar liquid" which is basically a caramel. You make it by dry burning sugar, adding heavy cream, and then adding coconut milk and lemon juice. Because you add so much cream and coconut milk to the burnt sugar, the liquid ends up a light tan color.

To make the cake, you cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla, and then alternately add in dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt) and half of the burnt sugar liquid. You pour the batter into a well-greased Bundt pan and bake.

I had some problems with the frosting. The frosting seems like it should be simple -- just put the ingredients (butter, powdered sugar, rum, and the remaining burnt sugar liquid) in a food processor and pulse until the frosting is shiny and smooth. The first time I made the cake, I used room temperature butter, even though the recipe didn't specify any particular temperature for the butter -- after all, frosting is usually made with softened or room temperature butter. But I found that the resulting frosting was grainy and thin. I tried adding more powdered sugar, chilling the frosting, reprocessing it, gently heating it over a double boiler... nothing I did could eliminate the grainy broken texture. Because the frosting was so thin, it was more of a glaze than a frosting, and I could only get a thin layer on the cake because the excess simply ran off the sides (or pooled in the hole in the middle of the cake). I still served the cake, but was determined to make it again to see if I could fix the frosting.

The following evening I made the cake again, using cold butter for the frosting. The frosting was not grainy but it ended up with small lumps of butter that I had to strain out with a sieve. It was still too thin to hold its shape, so I chilled the frosting for about an hour and it ended up thick enough that I could spread it all on the cake and have it stay put. After adding some caramel shard topping garnish (sugar and a little bit of water, heated until melted and golden, poured out on a Silpat and broken into pieces), I got the cake pictured below, which was reasonably close to the cookbook photo.

I was surprised when I cut into the cake that the interior was a light tan color. I had expected it to be much darker, like the picture in the cookbook. The cake cut beautifully, creating almost no crumbs. To me, the caramel shards looked like flames coming out of the top of the individual slices.

This cake was unbelievably delicious. It had the dense, moist, buttery texture of a perfect pound cake. The burnt sugar liquid gave it a bit of extra oomph that I would not have identified as caramel per se, but it definitely had more complexity than a vanilla pound cake. I could not detect the coconut milk at all. I have to admit that I scraped the frosting off my piece of cake, as I don't like the flavor of rum -- but this cake is amazing even all by itself. That said, tasters liked the rum frosting and the cake earned raves including "OMG," "AMAZING," and "Exquisite; amazing; tasty; incredible."

The funny thing is that while the caramel shards do make for an exquisite presentation, the cake itself is so spectacular that it needs no extra bells or whistles. But there's nothing wrong with a little eye candy!

Recipe: "Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake with Caramel Rum Frosting" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Sawdust Pie

I literally groaned out loud when I saw the assignment for this week for Baked Sunday Mornings: Sawdust Pie. Not that I have anything against sawdust pie in particular (I had never ever heard of it before), but I'm running a perfect track record when it comes to the pies and tarts from Baked Explorations: pies with pastry crusts = fail (see peaches and dream pie, buttermilk pie, blackberry pie); pies with cookie crumb crusts = delicious (see peanut butter banana cream pie, Mississippi mud pie (B), Mississippi mud pie (A)); and tarts = fabulous (see orange creamsicle tart, malted crisp tart, almond joy tart, whiskey pear tart). After making the sawdust pie, at least I can sill say I'm consistent; I am apparently incapable of getting these pies to turn out correctly.

The biggest problem I've had with the pies from Baked Explorations is that the crust ends up undercooked on the bottom. On the plus side, the crust is a breeze to make in the food processor (flour, sugar, salt, butter, and ice water) and also very easy to handle and roll out. Having had negative experiences with this crust before, I did cross my mind that perhaps I should blind bake the crust first -- I don't know why I didn't do so; hope springs eternal, I suppose.

Once you've rolled out the crust and chilled it, you fill it with a mixture of sugar, dark brown sugar, coconut, pecans, graham cracker crumbs, white chocolate, salt, egg whites, and vanilla. You then bake the pie until it's set to the touch. I wanted to be on the safe side, so I baked the pie until the filling barely jiggled, about 45 minutes. 

I took this pie, while still slightly warm, to Liam's birthday party. When I cut into it, it was quite difficult to remove slices of pie from the pan because (sigh) the crust was significantly undercooked on the bottom and sides. The filling was interesting -- gooey and chewy (but as you can see in the photo above, it was not runny at all) with lots of wonderful texture, reminiscent of a Girl Scout Samoa cookie. I thought the filling was too sweet, but other people at the party enjoyed it. Perhaps most surprising, Alexander -- the boy who doesn't like cake -- ate his entire slice of pie.

Nonetheless, I am happy to just resign myself to the fact that pie is not my thing. Now that I've tried all of the pies from Baked Explorations, I don't plan to ever look back! Fortunately, there is no shortage of other wonderful recipes in the book to keep me occupied!

Recipe: "Sawdust Pie" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.

Liam Turns Three: Yellow Birthday Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Ganache Frosting

My young friend Liam just turned three years old, and just as I always bake a birthday cake for his older brother Alexander, I offered to supply the baked goods for Liam's birthday party. Interestingly, the two boys are a world apart when it comes to desserts. Alexander is not particularly a fan of chocolate, frosting, cake, or dessert in general; the only type of cake he truly enjoys is carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Liam, on the other hand, is fairly indiscriminate when it comes to sweets and I have yet to come across a cake he didn't like.

Liam's mother Dorothy told him that he could request any type of cake he wanted from me. Upon learning this information, Alexander (who turns six next month and is wise beyond his years) launched a propaganda campaign promoting carrot cake, emphasizing the wonders of cream cheese frosting. So it was not surprising that Liam in fact subsequently asked for a carrot cake. Dorothy asked Liam if he was sure, and mentioned that I had suggested yellow cake with chocolate frosting as a possibility. Liam was sold at "chocolate frosting" and had an instant change of heart.

I made Joanne Chang's "Yellow Birthday Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Ganache Frosting." The method for making this cake is pretty standard; you cream together butter and sugar, add in eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla, and then alternately incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt) and buttermilk. You divide the batter between two 8-inch pans and bake. You frost the cakes with a frosting made by beating butter with powdered sugar, vanilla, and cooled chocolate ganache.

This frosting was a little on the soft side, but as a consequence, it was very easy to spread to a smooth finish. I had plenty of frosting left to pipe a border along the top and bottom edge. Since my cake writing skills are terrible, I decorated the top with plastic animals and matching candles.

This cake is fantastic. Moist, dense, and rich, with an intensely chocolate and yet virtually weightless frosting. There's a reason that yellow cake and chocolate frosting are such a classic combination; they are perfect together. Liam thoroughly enjoyed his piece of cake. Even though Alexander politely declined to even try a bite, I think this might be the perfect birthday cake.

Recipe: "Yellow Birthday Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Ganache Frosting" from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe, by Joanne Chang.

Previous Posts:

• "Liam Turns One: Lemon Buttercream Torte," August 8, 2010.
• "Alexander Turns Five!: Riva's Carrot Cake," September 29, 2011.

What's the Buzz on Snack Cakes?: Choco-Buzz

It seems that there is a designated a day to honor every type of food. There are so many of these contrived observances that it's hard to keep track; I had no idea that July 21 was "National Junk Food Day" until an item from King Arthur Flour showed up in my Facebook newsfeed, announcing the fact and providing a link to a chocolate snack cake recipe, the "Choco-Buzz." The picture of the Choco-Buzz looked so delicious that I had to give the recipe a try.

The Choco-Buzz is a chocolate cake filled with chocolate cream and topped with chocolate icing. It's intended to be a recreation of the Hostess Choco-Bliss snack cake. My own snack cake of choice growing up was the Dolly Madison (now Hostess) Zinger, so I don't have any particular nostalgia for the Choco-Bliss. But I appreciate chocolate cake as much as the next person.

The cake is made with melted butter, cocoa, hot water, flour, espresso powder, sugar, baking soda, salt, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. You bake the cake in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan, and once it has cooled, you unmold it from the pan, cut it in half crosswise (this is just for ease of handling), and then split each half into two layers. You fill the cake with a mixture of butter, shortening, powdered sugar, cocoa, chocolate, salt, heavy cream, and vanilla, and then top it with an icing made from chocolate, corn syrup, vanilla, cream, and powdered sugar.

The recipe instructs you to fill and frost the two cake halves and then slice them into individual snack cakes. I trimmed off the edges of the cakes and got 32 slim slices that were one by three inches. I kept the cakes in the fridge overnight (after all, we are in the middle of a hot, humid summer here in the Northeast), and the next morning I discovered that I could tidy them considerably by trimming them again. In the future (and I will definitely make these again), I would fill and ice the cakes, refrigerate them overnight, and then slice them. Chilling the cakes first firms up all of the components and allows much cleaner cuts.

Choco-Buzz is the Choco-Bomb. These are some darn tasty snack cakes, and they are delicious at room temperature or straight out of the fridge. The cake is chocolate-y and moist, the filling is creamy and decadent, and the icing is thick and fudgy. At first, I thought the icing was too dense, but then I realized that it had a texture virtually identical to the icing on a Zinger. I think it's a big contributor to the overall snack cake sensation. And boy, are these sensational!

Recipe: "Choco-Buzz" from King Arthur Flour.

Previous Posts:

• "Now in Technicolor: Coconut Teacakes Redux," October 28, 2011.
• "Ugliness is Next to Tastiness: Peanut Butter Parcels," April 28, 2011.
• "A Childhood Treat from a Purloined Page," September 7, 2008.

This Cake is Beyond Wacky: Low-Fat Vegan Chocolate Cake

Recently I was looking for another cake recipe in Joanne Chang's cookbook Flour when I flipped by her recipe for "Vegan Low-Fat Chocolate Cake." Under normal circumstances, I would totally ignore a vegan cake recipe, much less one also labeled as low fat. But I've been experimenting a little with vegan baking, as one of my colleagues at work is limited to a very restricted diet because she is breastfeeding her infant daughter who has allergies to (among other things) dairy, eggs, and nuts. In fact, my colleague was inspired to start a blog to dedicated to allergy-free cooking and baking. Since I don't own any vegan cookbooks, I've been getting baking recipes from vegan blogs. But this is the first time I've come across a vegan recipe in a mainstream cookbook. I figured this chocolate cake would have to be a winner for Chang to include it Flour.

This cake is so easy to make that Chang points out that it's "a great recipe for beginning bakers." You stir together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking soda, and salt, and then pour in a mixture of water, canola oil, vanilla, and molasses. You stir everything together and pour the batter into a buttered and floured 6-inch pan (I "buttered" my pan with Earth Balance buttery sticks to keep the cake vegan).   My batter had a lot of small lumps in it after I incorporated the wet ingredients, so I put the batter through a sieve to make sure it was completely smooth.

There is no picture of the cake in the cookbook, and I was a little shocked to see that the cake was rising very high in the oven into a tall dome with a cracked surface. My 6-inch cake pans are three inches high, and center peak of the cake rose above the height of the pan. The recipe says to bake the cake for 50-55 minutes, or until it springs back when lightly pressed in the middle. I took the cake out of the oven at 50 minutes, when the cake sprung back when pressed, but a skewer I stuck into the middle came out covered in raw batter. I thought that the cake might sink upon cooling, but the high dome didn't budge a bit.

After the cake was cool and I unmolded and sliced it, I was very impressed with the fine and moist texture of the crumb. The cake didn't taste vegan or low fat. However, it also didn't taste very chocolate-y. It was screaming out for a little ice cream or fudge sauce or whipped cream. Or something. The cake just wasn't completely satisfying. That said, it performed far beyond my expectations for a vegan and low-fat cake. And I think that texture is one of the most difficult things to get correct with vegan baking, so this cake scores extra points on that front.

Reflecting on this cake afterwards, I realized that the recipe was quite similar to that for "wacky cake," a vegan chocolate cake that I have never made myself, but have often recommended to friends looking for cakes made without eggs or butter (see a wacky cake recipe here). Wacky cake batter is mixed entirely in the cake pan itself, so you don't need to dirty a single bowl. I looked up some wacky cake recipes to see if Chang's vegan cake was just a variation, and I found some critical differences. Food scientist and author Shirley Corriher discussed the science behind wacky cake (or "crazy cake," as she calls it) in a 2010 Los Angeles Times article, and she mentioned several factors critical to their success, including: high-protein flour like King Arthur to give the cake a proper form and texture; vinegar to create an acidic batter that helps the flour proteins set faster; and making sure you don't use Dutch process cocoa, because its alkalinity could interfere with the setting of the cake.

I used White Lily bleached all-purpose flour to make Chang's cake, since it is my standard all-purpose flour. It's actually a lower-protein flour than other types of all-purpose flour, although not as low as cake flour. Chang's recipe also specifically calls for Dutch process cocoa (which is neutral, not acidic), so that's what I used. In addition, Chang's recipe doesn't include any vinegar, although it does include two tablespoons of molasses, which is acidic (but less so than vinegar). On the surface, it looks like Chang's cake shouldn't work at all. But somehow, it bakes up into a moist, tender cake without any eggs or butter. It's just beyond wacky!

Recipe: "Vegan Low-Fat Chocolate Cake" from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe" by Joanne Chang.

It Looks Like Peach, and It's Just Peachy: Almond-Plum Buckle

Last weekend I decided to bake an "Almond-Plum Buckle" with some beautiful golden plums I had purchased at the farmers market.

To make the almond cake batter, you cream butter, add sugar, eggs, vanilla, and almond extract, and then incorporate the dry ingredients (ground almonds, flour, baking powder, salt). Your pour the batter into a pan and then top it with sliced plums. I doubled this recipe to bake it in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan, and I used two and a half pounds of plums that I cut into quarters (my plums were on the small side). I ended up with so many sliced plums that I covered the entire surface of the cake batter with tightly-spaced rows of plums and I still had some fruit left over. I sprinkled on a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and put the cake in the oven.

Because my plum slices were so close together, there wasn't much room for the cake batter to rise between the pieces of fruit. I had laid on the plums skin side up, and the cinnamon-sugar mixture I sprinkled on before baking remained completely dry and untouched in the middle of most of the slices. When I cut the cake, the force of the knife desquamated many of the plum slices, as the skins had became loose during baking. That's why in the photo above, you can see some golden brown plum skins covered in cinnamon-sugar at the same time that you see the bright yellow flesh of some plums exposed because their skins are missing. The gorgeous yellow fruit made this look like a peach cake instead of a plum cake.

The cake was very rich and and buttery, and quite dense -- in the best way. The strong almond flavor was wonderful, although the cake was so decadent that the fruit definitely played second fiddle and almost seemed like an afterthought. The plums were very sweet with a touch of tartness from the skins, and cinnamon was the perfect flavor to bridge the cake and fruit together. I really enjoyed this cake and would love to give it a try with other fruits!

Recipe: "Almond-Plum Buckle" from epicurious.com.

Previous Posts:

• "Small Fruits Deliver Big Flavor: Plum and Blueberry Upside-Down Torte," July 10, 2012.
• "How Can Upside-Down Be So Right?: Plum Upside-Down Cake," October 3, 2011.
• "Putting the 'Cake' Back into 'Coffeecake': Plum Streusel Coffeecake," September 30, 2011.