Happy Halloween! Chocolate Red Wine Cake

 This isn't my first foray into the chocolate/booze experience.  The first was this chocolate rum cake-- good, but I didn't rave about it.  I tried these red wine brownies and had a mixed reaction.  I even tried a red wine chocolate cake once before, but was unimpressed.  So why try again?  Because I'm convinced this is a delicious combination-- I just have to find the right mix.  Is it the recipe that makes the difference?  Maybe.  Food & Wine, the source for today's recipe, has a well-deserved reputation.  Review comments on this recipe, however, seem to put great stock in the wine used.  Seems Bordeaux is the prime choice, while Cabernet Sauvignon did not work well.  Not very helpful, since Bordeaux reds are a blend of grapes, one of which is Cabernet Sauvignon.

Not willing to invest a quality wine to what might end up a mediocre bake, I bought a bottle of Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon, otherwise known as 2-buck Chuck (now $3.99 Chuck).  Despite its low cost, Charles Shaw wines regularly receive surprisingly good reviews, probably because it's actually drinkable, while other wines at that price point are better reserved for salad dressing.  That said, the wine in the final result was completely undetectable, even in the ganache.  I didn't point out it was a red wine cake when I served it, and no one asked about any subtle flavoring.  It was, however, an amazing chocolate cake!

I was bringing this cake to a Halloween party, so I baked it in my Wilton skull pan, but kept it simple.  (I've used this pan previously here and here.)  No fancy decorations this time.  The original recipe is for a 12-cup Bundt; I halved the recipe and baked it in just the face half of the skull pan.  It would probably work fine in an 8" x 4" loaf pan, or a single 9" round cake pan.  Here's what I used:

1 cup all-purpose flour 

3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)

5/8 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

7/8 cup sugar

1 large egg 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

5/8 cup dry red wine 

Confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 325°. Butter and flour a 6-cup pan. In a bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  In a large bowl, using a handheld electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugar at medium-high speed until fluffy, 4 minutes. Add the egg and beat until incorporated. Add the vanilla and beat for 2 minutes longer. Working in two batches, alternately fold in the dry ingredients and the wine, until just incorporated.

 

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a rack; let cool completely. Drizzle or streak the ganache around the sides of the plate and just a little in the center (to help hold the cake in place.) Dust the cake with confectioner's sugar, then place on the plate. Serve with whipped mascarpone cream.

 

Ganache:
2 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons red wine

pinch of salt

Heat the chocolate and butter in a double boiler until melted; stir together.  Add the wine and salt and stir until smooth.

 

Topping
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup (118 grams) chilled heavy or whipping cream
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whip together until soft peaks form -- don't over whip. 

 

I over baked this cake, and it still turned out great, but I'm frustrated with Wilton-- they included a recipe with the cake pan for a pumpkin cake that requires a long bake time.  I think it must be the moisture in that particular batter requiring that lengthy bake, because I keep over baking the cakes when I use another recipe.  It was nice of Wilton to include the recipe, but guidance for a standard cake recipe would have been more helpful.  I used a thermal cake strip around the pan, which is supposed to help the cake rise more evenly.  I baked it for 65 minutes, and even though it was overdone, it sank in the middle.  The edges were a bit crusty, but the whole thing was delicious.  The pan probably needs only a normal bake time.

 

Conclusion: This was amazing! Semi-sweet, and so good! Rich and moist and chocolatey, made even more so with just a little bit of the ganache -- you don't need a lot.

Recipe:  Chocolate Red Wine Cake via Kristin Donnelly at Food & Wine

May ABC challenge: Lemon Buttermilk Cake

This month's challenge was "teacake", that being a simple cake that doesn't include a lot of other components, but is eaten rather plain.  With an abundance of lemons, I made this Maida Heatter recipe (which was noted as being slightly adapted from her New Book of Great Desserts.)  Compared to this lemon cake I made several years ago, this one was much less expensive to make, although not as rich.  I modified it further from the recipe to suit my taste and ingredients on hand.

Here's what I used:

1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs

2 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 3/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

3 tablespoons lemon juice

Finely grated rind of 3 large lemons (juice will be used for glaze)

Glaze

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1/3 cup granulated sugar

Grease well and flour lightly a 10-cup Bundt pan. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until soft. Add the sugar and beat until well mixed. (I beat it until very light and fluffy.) Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift the dry ingredients together; on low speed, add in three additions to the butter mixture, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the dry. Beat only until smooth after each addition, scraping the bowl frequently with a rubber spatula. Remove from the mixer and stir in the lemon rind and juice. (Rind can get caught up in the beaters.) Turn into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a cake tester gently inserted into the middle comes out clean and dry. The cake will be deeply golden brown and will have begun to pull away from the sides of the pan.

 

While the cake is baking, make the glaze. Mix the juice and sugar and let stand, stirring occasionally.

 

Remove the cake from the oven and let it stand in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn out onto a rack and place it over a large piece of foil. With a pastry brush, brush the glaze over the top, sides and tube of the hot cake. Let stand until completely cool.

 

 

 

The only change I made was to increase the salt slightly.  I also reduced the lemon juice a little before measuring by letting it sit out and evaporate, so that it was a little more concentrated.  It finished baking in an hour.  Also, the original recipe calls for dusting the pan with bread crumbs rather than flour.  I tried this, but wasn't happy with the results.  For one, it's more fiddly.  But more importantly, the surface of the cake had a very loose, uneven, sloppy-looking crumb.  I've never had a problem with excess flour being visible on my cakes, even chocolate, so although this is Ms. Heatter's favorite technique, I won't be using it in the future.

I experienced a rare mishap in that the cake broke while turning it out of the pan.  I blame myself.  I guess because of the suggestion to use bread crumbs, I got it in my head that the cake would be difficult to get out, and so was a little rough with it.  It probably would have turned out fine if I'd used my usual technique.  The cake was delicious, and extremely light and fluffy the first day.  (It firmed up slightly by the following day, which I actually preferred.)  However I found it somewhat overly sweet.  The sugar level was fine where you got the tart lemon glaze, but the glaze hadn't soaked in as much as I'd expected, so much of the cake didn't benefit, and although it had a lovely texture, it didn't have much lemon flavor.

Conclusion:  The recipe was too good to disregard completely.  I'm inclined to skip the lemon altogether, add vanilla, and use the recipe that way (reducing the sugar by maybe 1/2 cup.)  However, if I did use the lemon again, I'd make a layer cake so the glaze was more evenly distributed and use whipped cream filling.  (Alternatively, poke the cake prior to applying the glaze so it actually enters the interior.)

Recipe:  Maida Heatter's Lemon Buttermilk Cake via Food 52

Strawberry Basil Bundt cake

Update 8/28/22:  I made this again, properly this time (from a box with an expiration date of 2017, but oh well); curious how it turned out looking pretty much the same.  (Perhaps slightly less neon.)  I made only half the mix and baked it in a 5" x 2" round pan for about 38 minutes.  Also, based on my earlier notes, I used half the oil (2 tablespoons).

It baked quickly around the edges, then rose quite a lot in the middle.  Perhaps I should have used a lower temperature -- the cake was a little dry and quite brown around the edges.   In addition, with the correct mix in the cake, maybe the full amount of oil would have worked better as well.  I'm not sure which factor caused the dryness -- perhaps both.  Also, it could use a little more salt.  All in all it was a little bland, and I'm not sure about the basil this time.  I sensed I was eating something more savory, like cornbread, but then I'd get the overly sweet glaze.  Sort of a weird mix.  (One of the things I don't like about Bundt cakes and similar is that there's so much frosting on the outside and nothing on the inside -- it's too uneven.)

I still have half the box left, so I have one more try to get it right.

 ➖一➖一➖一➖一➖一➖一➖

Let me say up front that this is a boxed cake.  I saw it in World Market and thought it sounded interesting, and it didn't have any weird ingredients.  (Well there's basil, but I digress...)

I was making it on a weekday evening to take to a work party the next day.  When I opened the box, there were 3 unmarked, foil-looking plastic bags.  I searched them all over looking for some identification --- there was supposed to be a batter mix, a swirl mix, and a glaze mix --- but I couldn't find anything.  I figured the largest bag must be the batter mix and the middle-sized bag, the swirl mix.  The instructions were to mix up the cake batter and reserve 1 cup.  To that reserved cup you were to add the swirl mix.  The swirl mix, from what I could tell, was just strawberry-flavored powdered sugar.  Didn't seem TOO odd --- the cake mix wasn't terribly sweet, so a swirl of a more potent flavor seemed reasonable, but was a little disappointing.

I made the cake per the directions, swirling the two batters together, and it baked up fine.  I left it to cool overnight, with the intention of glazing it during lunch the next day. 

So the next day, I start to prepare the glaze.  I pick up the packet and there I see, in fine type, "Swirl mix".  Well now, isn't that interesting.  No wonder the mix I'd used had looked like powdered sugar.  It WAS!  But a little (okay a lot) of extra sugar in the cake wouldn't hurt anything.  But how would the swirl mix be as glaze?  I was about to find out.

I opened up the packet and it was a dark pink powder, sort of like dry Jello.  It tasted mildly sweet, like strawberry, and a bit tangy.  I added about a cup of powdered sugar and a tablespoon or two of water until it was a glazing consistency, and forged ahead.

Conclusion:  In the end, it all worked out fine.  The cake was quite sweet, and the glaze came out tasting a bit like candy and had these strawberry "bits" in it.  A little went a long way --- it somewhat overwhelmed the rather delicate cake flavors --- but everyone thought it was great.  It's a decent cake mix, and those two flavors do actually compliment each other nicely.  But now I feel compelled to bake it again to see what it's like when done right!  Only this time, I would cut the oil (1/2 cup) in half, as it was a bit rich.  In the end, a fun experiment.

Recipe:  Strawberry and Basil Bundt Cake Mix by Sof'ella

Basic butter cake

Because there wasn't enough decadence already on the menu for the holidays, we had a retirement party at work for a co-worker and brought in more.  This was my contribution.  I needed something that would come together with minimal fuss.  This recipe  uses an unconventional mixing method, but it worked!  I did not beat the batter very long at all, just enough to mix well, due to her caution, but I saw later by her photos that she would have had me beat it longer, until it was fluffy. Whatever, it wasn't a problem.  The cake rose beautifully, done in just an hour, and was delightful.  I made a simple spiced fruit compote as a tangy side to the sweet, buttery cake.

Here's what I used:

3 cups cake flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
4 eggs, room temperature

Glaze
1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract

In a stand mixer bowl combine the cake flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda and mix to combine.   Add the buttermilk, butter, vanilla and almond extract and eggs. Mix well. Do not over beat, mix just until ingredients are combined, about three and a half minutes. Pour into a greased and floured Bundt pan.  Bake at 325 degrees for 1- 1¼  hours or until cake tester comes out clean.  (Do not overbake!  Baking times depend on many factors so start testing for doneness after 50 min. Depending on pan size and oven variances, you could under or over bake.)  In the pan, pierce the hot cake with fork tines or a bamboo skewer. Pour half the glaze slowly over the cake.  Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then flip out onto a cake plate. Pour the remaining sauce over the cake.  Serve with fruit or ice cream.

Glaze:  Combine all the ingredients, except vanilla, in a sauce pan. Bring to a slow boil over medium heat . Stir in vanilla, set aside to slightly cool.





Conclusion:  This is a very good basic butter cake, very light.  I'm not sure about the almond flavoring -- seems like almond needs to be part of a bigger picture -- and I wasn't keen on the glaze.  The glaze crystallized (judging from the other photos, this was everyone's experience), became slightly chewy and was overly sweet.  It also wasn't very attractive.  But the cake is a versatile recipe; it would be good as a layer cake, in a Bacardi rum cake, or with just a plain bittersweet ganache.  It also could be flavored with spices, citrus, etc.  I will make this again, but in a different incarnation.


Cake recipe:  Bust Your Buttons Butter Cake by Angela Gray for Just a Pinch.
Original compote recipe:   Spiced cranberry sauce via Taste of Home, with added mixed berries and apple.

Chocolate Rum Cake

 

1½ cups unsalted butter
3/4 lb bittersweet chocolate , broken
3 cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup dark rum
2 cups strong, brewed coffee
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2¼ cups sugar
3 large eggs
1/4 cup rum, for soaking cake (optional)

Preheat your oven to 300F.  Butter a 4½-inch-deep (12-cup) Bundt pan and dust with cocoa powder flour. In a medium pot, melt the butter; remove from heat and stir in the chocolate pieces. Cover and let melt. Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir the rum, vanilla extract, coffee, and sugar into the melted butter mixture. Slowly combine butter mixture with dry mixture (add about half, whisk until smooth, then add remainder.)  Add the eggs and beat until a smooth batter forms.  Scrape the sides as needed to work in all the flour.  Pour into Bundt pan and bake for 1 hour and 50 minutes.  (Be sure to leave at least one inch clear at the top of the Bundt pan so that it doesn’t overflow.)  Let the cake cool to room temperature on a rack, then turn out. Can be refrigerated for up to 3 days. (Optional: poke it all over with a skewer and sprinkle on a shot or two of extra rum. Be sure to let it sit overnight to soak it up evenly.)  Dust with a flurry of powdered sugar, slice thickly, and serve with a dollop of whipped cream.
 

This was a lot of cake--- it made a small extra loaf.  This could easily be reduced to 2/3 or 1/3 using a loaf pan.  I used the small airbake pan under the cake and had trouble getting the cake to release, so not a good idea.  Others also had trouble getting it out of the pan. (Recommended Baker’s Joy.)  The cake rose very high and crusted, then fell while cooling and the edges separated. 

Some interesting alternatives by other bakers:  some added more rum (1 cup) and let it mellow a day, and more chocolate (2-3 oz).  One added orange peel.  Some added more coffee, or used instant, or substituted espresso.  One frosted with cream cheese/whipped cream.

Conclusion:  Cake was very good; light and delicate, but very rich. Could have used a bit more salt, maybe ½ teaspoon.

Recipe:  Midnight Mocha Rum Cake via Global Table Adventure