March 22, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Chocolate Pound Cake
This is the best chocolate cake I've ever had. The caveat is that I'm not a chocolate freak, and this isn't the super-fudgy, dark 'n oily concoction that chocolate freaks generally like. But the outside is crispy and the inside has a wonderful texture -- soft and delicate. The chocolate extract gives it a lovely, delicate flavour.
Cake:
2 1/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
3/4 cup unsweetened
Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sour cream (8 1/2 ounces)
2 1/4 sticks (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon chocolate extract (available at Williams Sonoma)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 large eggs
Do not preheat oven. Butter and flour a 12-cup bundt pan, knocking out any excess flour.
Into a small bowl sift together flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, and salt. In another small bowl stir together baking soda and sour cream.
In a large bowl with an electric mixer (preferably a standing electric mixer) beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. Beat in extracts and add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. With mixer at low speed, add flour mixture and sour cream mixture alternately in batches, beating until just combined.
Pour batter into bundt pan and put in middle of cold oven. Set oven to 350°F and bake cake 1 hour and 25 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on a rack 15 minutes and turn out onto rack to cool completely.
When cake is cool, wrap first in plastic wrap, and then in aluminum foil, and freeze for at least 24 hours. (Cake may be frozen up to 3 months). Let thaw in refrigerator for an additional 24 hours, and at room temperature for at least another two hours, before serving.
Posted by Jane Galt at March 22, 2004 4:02 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksTwo and one-quarter sticks of butter! And a cup of sour cream! Sounds like the basis of a beautiful cake, and small wonder it should be soft and delicate, but don't let your cardiologist learn of your baking habits.
Brains, beauty, wit, satire, taste, ... And she cooks! How has she managed to remain single so long?
Since dessert is more chemistry than alchemy, I should point out this mistake: a cup (of sour cream) 8 ounces. After all, a pint (2 cups) is a pound (16 oz) the world around, as they say. However, the sour cream and a couple other odd measurements (e.g. 1 cup plus 2 tbsp butter) suggests that the recipe was converted rather literally from metric units.
Part of the delicacy of the cake comes from using cake flour. I don't think this was a metric recipe, tho, LAN3; 2.25 cups cake flour would be the normal substitution for 2.0 cups of regular flour (cake flour has less gluten).
It doesn't really sound like a pound cake, what with the sour cream and the brown sugar (brown sugar?!?). I'm suspicious that freezing it for 24 hours is supposed to give it that "just out of the grocer's freezer" Sara Lee pound cake taste. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
The Dutch-process cocoa can be found in most grocery stores (well, not the teeny-tiny ones in Manhattan). Hershey's makes one, which they call "European-style", in a foil-label-with-brown-letters canister. It's darker than normal cocoa, and to my mind has a bit of coffee taste.
I hadn't heard of chocolate extract before, I'll have to look around for some (no nearby Williams-Sonoma stores, alas). But on the topic of extracts, anyone know what's up with the price of vanilla extract? Its price has about quadrupled in the last year.
My version of LAN3's opening statement is "Cooking is Art; Baking is Science". Do not be tempted to omit the salt. In some way I don't understand, it brings out the sweetness. My father actually lightly salted his watermelon for that reason.
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