Project Chocolate Cake - Final Reflections (PM)

Whoa! Mate, I think you may be onto something.

First, some final reflections on Nigella's cake:
-Like K and the D.Leb cake, after eating a few more slices of Nigella's cake my affection for it grew.
-Every time I got a bit of icing on my finger and then licked it off I was blown away by it's deliciousness. Try that icing you guys! But on a different cake.
-My mum told me the cake was delicious. "Don't you think the icing made it too sweet?" I asked her, but she just looked dubious and as if she just thought it was a really good cake. But I think she really likes chocolate cake a lot.

But I've been thinking things too, and I think that K is right. Think about any chocolate cake you have eaten in the last 15 years. Think about the ones about which you have declared, "Far out, this is delicious." What were those cakes like? Super chocolatey, probably rich, probably fudgy. Not at all like the straight up cake of childhood, which is kind of what I was hoping I would be able to make and would be delicious. Sure, that may be possible if you are living in a fool's paradise. But I'm living in a gangsta's paradise. Or something.

Project Chocolate Cake - Final Reflections (AM)

I've had a few conversations with people about the chocolate cake project over the last few days, and thought it might be a good idea to summarise what we've learnt and make some final reflections before we all move on with our lives. 

It seems that the chocolate cake project has stirred up a feeling or two in a few of Miss Soft Crab's beloved readers. In summary, it seems that people:

- love, and I mean love, talking to me about chocolate cake at the moment.

-are impressed with the matrix and excited by the opportunities it presents 

-remember top shelf chocolate cakes from when they were little, but have no recipe that they make now that they're sold on

It's making me wonder whether maybe, just maybe, chocolate cake is something that is just better in childhood. I mean, we all had different standards back then, didn't we? We all loved cake, we all loved chocolate, and we all loved icing. Childhood chocolate cakes brought all these things together and didn't give a damn about whether the chocolate flavour came from cocoa or melted chocolate (as if real chocolate came anywhere near childhood chocolate cakes...AS IF), they didn't give a damn about how much sugar was involved, they didn't give a damn about whether the cakes came out flat.  They just showed up and that was enough to make our little kid hearts explode. But now we've been around the block a few times, we've tasted good chocolate, we've tasted good cake, we want more. We're like junkies chasing the thrill of our first taste and I'm not entirely sure it's possible. 

Having said that, I may have had a few more slices of the D.Leb cake and my love for it only grew. I stand by my original comments...it doesn't taste mega-chocolatey in and of itself... but gee whiz readers, I've tasted worse things. You bet I have. I still plan on making the Felicity Cloake recipe at some point, but that's something for down the track. Right now I have to start thinking about christmas baking because I think this is the year I am going to try my hand at a gingerbread house. And mince pies. But the gingerbread house...that shit takes planning, because i'm not talking about some bullshit ikea flat pack gingerbread house (even though I kind of love ikea food) I'm talking about the real thing.

Anyway, I just thought I'd say those things about chocolate cake, because if there's one thing this project has taught me, it's that chocolate cake makes people feel a lot of feelings. 

No idea what I'm talking about? Catch up here, here, here and here. 

Project Chocolate Cake - The Cakes are Baked (PM)

Well, for me, Sunday was baking day. And I gotta tell ya, things did not go exactly to plan for me either.

Firstly, I'm flipping sick. A motherflipping cold. I can't really taste anything properly.

Secondly, because I only have one 20cm-cake tin and because I also didn't want to have too much cake I decided to halve Nigella's recipe, which, like D.Lebs also called for two cakes to be baked and then sandwiched together with an icing. I even thought to myself as I was measuring up, "Well I guess I will inevitably forget to halve something." And, as it was inevitable, I did. I halved everything except the eggs. Is that so bad? I don't know but I do know my cake didn't rise at all. Then again, neither did K's D.Leb cake, so maybe it was just some par for this weird course. Oh sure the cake got a giant dome, like all cakes (how the eff do you make an even topped cake?!?!?), but the edges, pah like pancakes. Has this got anything to do with the egg double up? Who knows.

Oh, sure I could have made the cake again, you know for science, but I've seen what happens to bloggers that cook and test and cook and test recipes.

Not an actual blogger

But, my own personal fuck-up notwithstanding this is definitely a cake with potential. Chucking a bunch of ingredients in a mixer and mixing them before chucking it in a tin and baking, my kind of cake.

As discussed, Nigella's recipe did not have enough cocoa. I tried her recommended dose but tasting the mix I decided it really needed a double up. So I doubled up.


So Nigella wants you to make two cakes, sandwich them together with icing, and ice, top and sides, with icing. Me, I'm not much of an icing gal. Its too sweet for my tastes so I was gonna kybosh the sandwiching, but after coming up with the flatty cake I decided the sandwich would add some height and substance.

The icing is a mixture of sour cream, butter, chocolate, golden syrup and icing sugar. I used a third of the sugar Nigella suggested, you know for thickness, it was pretty sweet, but also, it was pretty damn delicious.

So let's get down to brass tacks. The cake is moist and chocolatey and basically exactly like a chocolate cake. It's yum. But like the Lebovitz cake, the real chocolate hit comes from the icing, and that is not how I want my cake. Plus with the icing, it really was way to fucking sweet. What I know though is that I have learned some lessons. I'd like to try this cake again, maybe up the rising agents slightly, leave off the icing. Or modify it. 

I know that this is a chocolate cake I could meet again. Is it the one? I don't think so. Plus with this cold so the whole affair has been less scientific than I would have liked, because my taste buds and appetite are all askew. But science isn't made in a day.

Project Chocolate Cake - The Cakes Are Baked (AM)

Saturday was baking day and well you guys...things did not go quite as expected for me.

The cake itself was fine. A breeze to put together and it produced a lovely silky smooth batter.

There was a not a huge amount of batter mind you, so when split in to two pans (as the recipe called for) it  yielded two relatively flat cakes.

Not to worry, I thought. It will all come together nicely when it's assembled and iced.
But the opposite of that happened!

The ganache was kind of a disaster. The recipe called for 300 grams of chocolate, half a cup of water and about 160 grams of butter. While I'm more used to the traditional cream/chocolate combo,  I have no reason to doubt David Lebovitz so I did just as he said.

Problems arose as soon as I started to whisk the butter in. It just wouldn't integrate properly. I kept going, thinking maybe it would come good as I added more but it really didn't. It basically started off split, and didn't stop being split.
Soon butter was just pooling in the bowl.
I decided to add some icing sugar and that helped, but shit guys. Its not meant to be like this.

Basically the assembled cake looked really fugly. 

I had to put Vaseline on the lens so it would look half decent. Not really. I suspect I accidentally smeared some butter on my camera phone lens because baking and photography really don't mix. 

Anyway, I decided to put hundreds and thousands on top, again so it would look a little more presentable. 

Better. But still not great.

Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that bit came later.

I took it to the Neville's house where I was going for dinner on Saturday night. 

When I cut in to it, I have to say I liked what I saw.

Fluffy and moist. Dark and chocolatey. Just what I was hoping for. 

And the taste, readers. The all important taste. It was delightful, truly delightful. A deadset sweet treat, but not cloyingly sweet. But...it wasn't very chocolatey. Sure, the ganache tasted like chocolate. The cake's taste declared itself of the chocolate family. But I think I wanted more. 

Perhaps this is impossible if one also wants a light and fluffy texture,  which happily becomes a little fudgey the next day. 

Perhaps you can't have both lightness and bold chocolateyness. Regardless, this is an excellent cake, and one I would totally make again. But, I think I'm going to have to try the Felicity Cloake recipe too.  I've seen what no chocolate in the recipe can do, now science needs me to see what chocolate in a recipe can do. 

Unless...the nigella recipe J is tried can answer the question. 

Project Chocolate Cake - the matrix

So you guys, we made a chocolate cake matrix. You can check it out for reals here! Basically we broke down seven recipes we were interested in as previously reported.

The recipe were:
Dan Lepard's sour cream chocolate cake
David Lebovitz's devil's food cake
Felicity Cloake's perfect chocolate cake
Nigella's old fashioned chocolate cake
Smitten Kitchen's everyday chocolate cake
Add A Pinch's best chocolate cake ever
Skye Gyngell's chocolate cake

J:  Ok, so looking at the matrix what are your initial thoughts?

K:  Ok, the first thing that comes to my mind is...I don't think I'm pro-oil in a chocolate cake. That's seriously the first thing that comes to mind for me. What's your oil position?

J:  Interesting. I don't mind that so much. I mean, sure, butter is great, but I quite like the texture that oil gives cake. I guess my first thought is that lots of fat really makes cake moist and delicious, and I guess I have been trying to figure out what the most important factor is for me. Though I guess there is no single factor

K: Fat has got to be up there. It's got to be way up there. And personally I think some actual chocolate is important. But the fact that only three of seven recipes has real chocolate makes me think that it's not essential for chocolate flavour. I think one of us should make a recipe with chocolate and one without...

J:  You know I was thinking about this recently. As in every day this week. I don't think chocolate is necessary at all. For a brownie that requires fudgeyness, YES! But for cake, no. I make this self-saucing chocolate pudding from Te Cooks Companion sometimes with just cocoa and it is so chocolatey and delicious! I make chocolate ice-cream with just cocoa. I think that chocolate in a cake of the everyday variety I am after is not necessary and I am more than happy to make one.

K: Ok excellent. Let's put this shit to the test.  I agree with you about the chocolateyness of self-saucing pudding, and that has no chocolate anywhere near it. That makes me think that maybe chocolate cake doesn't need it, and it's just my perception that it does. And obviously when the doors of perception are cleansed we can see things as they really are. Or whatever.

Let's talk sugar. Are you a caster, white or brown girl?

J:  Well, I like the depth of flavour of brown sugar, obvs, but to be honest when it comes to baking I just use whatever I am told to or whatever I have on hand, I tend to feel that when you bake the subtletly of sugar flavour is lost so it doesn't matter. But maybe I am wrong. Shit, am I wrong? On the sugar vibe though I have to say that my main concern when I look at the matrix is the fucking quantity! 400grams! 320 grams! These people are kidding me.

K:  I agree. There are some real sugar fiends out there. They need to lay of the gear.

J:  Yeah, I confess that when following American recipes I usually use about 75% of their recommended dosage.

K:  Smart.

What are your thoughts about additions like coffee and vanilla? I suspect these are the sorts of flavours that aren't meant to be noticed, but to make the chocolate aspect taste more chocolatey.

J:  Yes I agree and I am all for it!

K:  Ok great. Should we try one recipe with and one without?

J:  Almost all the recipes have at least one of them. Let's not limit ourselves on this factor. Is there a recipe you are most drawn to? And if yes, is it based on the matrix do you think, or your first contact with it?

K:  The Felicity Cloake one was my initial favourite, but that's largely a first contact interest. I still like what it's got to offer. Chocolate. Butter. Muscovado sugar. Milk. I like the way it's described as light enough for tea but rich enough for dessert. But when you look at it alongside the others, it does seem like it would be awfully rich. What do you think?

J:  Yeah, it would probably be delicious, but also very rich, definitely. I was quite attracted to the Nigella one at first, the simplicity, plus my love of her chocolate molten babycakes. But when I look at that in the matrix and see how little cocoa it has compared to the others it looks awfully unchocolatey.

K:  It sure does. You know, we don't have to be slaves to these recipes. I mean, we've already learnt some things from the matrix. You could double the cocoa in the Nigella cake and see what happens. Or, what about the David Lebovitz cake? I think that one's got a lot of potential.

J:  Definitely. First, I totally trust that guy! Second, I like how it has all the necessary components in respectable quantities (compared to the others). Plenty of cocoa, enough fat, not stupid amounts of sugar. DL knows whats what, yo!

K:  For real. And speaking of not stupid amounts of sugar, Dan Lepard has a very reasonable amount in his cake. But a fair whack of honey. And very little cocoa. But a little chocolate. I wonder what it would be like...

J:  Yeah, it's true, it has some interesting things going on, but I have to say the picture doesn't crab me like some of the others do. Ok, are we going to base our baking on the matrix only? Should we, for science?

 

K:  Haha. Crab  you.

J:  Grab me! I wish I'd intentionally said crab me!

K:  Oh well. What are you thinking of basing the baking on, outside the matrix?

J:  Oh, I just mean, can pictures come into it?

K:  Oh, sure. Sure they can! We're here for a good time, not a long time Mate. We would be fools to ignore an important source of evidence like pictures.

J:  Ok, still I don't know. I think one of us should definitely try David Lebovitz's cake.

K:  Agreed. Should we dismiss Smitten Kitchen and Skye Gyngell due to too much sugar?

J:  Yes, I think so. Also the Add a Pinch one. Too much sugar. I don't even know that website. I just know I liked the look of that cake.

The cake from 'Add a Pinch'. Looks good, right?

K:  Shit. That looks hot. I'm hoping that David Leb's looks like that inside. Though these photos are just a big tease. Cakes, like people, need to be judged by what's on the inside, am I right?

J:  So right! I was pretty disappointed by DL's lack of photographic evidence. Lucky I have evidence that he knows how to cook.

K:  He really, really does.

J:  But where does that leave us? I guess with Nigella and Dan. I guess Dan's has more of a point of difference to DL's but Nigella...I find her hard to dismiss.

K:  The woman's got game. It can't be ignored. What about Nigella with extra cocoa?

J:  Ok, let's do that. Do you want to do David and I will do Nigells. But I am not going to up the chocolate too much, because I am curious about whether she could be right about it. Maybe I'll go up to 65g.

Or 80g.

K:  Ha.

Next week: The cake!

Project Chocolate Cake - the beginning.

This week, K and I are gonna get experimental on yo' asses. K's gonna start explaining.
 
K: The other day, I was looking for a chocolate brownie recipe. Now I like my brownie to be fudgey, not cakey. But if there is a slight hint of cakey - only very slight - well that's OK by me. However, while I know this is how I like my brownie to taste, I can't look at a recipe and figure out whether that's going to deliver me the right kind of brownie for me. The way people talk about their brownies helps. Some would come right out and say "this is a very fudgey brownie". And then I could look at the ingredients and figure out why. But you know how it is...there are so many goddamn recipes out there and you start to get mixed up and really hungry and sooner or later you just make a call. Anyway, the other day I wrote down a matrix with all the key brownie ingredients on one side, and all the different brownie recipes I liked the look of up to the top. Then I filled in all the details and it was a goddamned revelation. Soon, it became quite clear that there was no effing way I was going to pursue the recipe with HALF the chocolate of most of them, or the one with TWICE the sugar of most of them. It was very, very educational. I could easily see which recipe had the most butter/chocolate/eggs etc., which, when considered alongside the recipes' descriptions of how fudgey or cakey or whatever the brownie is, I could start to figure out why.


Of course I could only pick one, but there were some others that I really wanted to try too. That's when I thought that maybe we could use this system to find perfect recipes for other things. We could nominate some recipes we like the look of, then draw up a matrix...

J: Well, a while ago I was interested in finding a great, go-to chocolate cake recipe and I am still very much am interested in that…

K: I'm glad you're open to comparative baking experiments. And like you, I would love a basic go-to chocolate cake so it makes sense that we try that.


J: You know I have this problem generally that although I know everyone has different feelings and opinions to me, my first reaction is to interpret everything through my own beliefs. Like if I read a recipe for "best brownies" I assume they will be fudgey and crackly on top and delicious but of course the author may have totally different feelings about brownies. Of course if there is more information I can interpret that but without it I just assume the world would do and want as I do.

I'm definitely into using chocolate cake to experiment with. It's hard though, you know, like Deb has this light, airy, cake which is delicious, but is that what I want as my number 1 cake recipe? I think I want a denser one. All good chocolate cake is delicious in its own way, but I guess I need to figure out what I am really looking for.
 
K: That's right! I think we all read what we want to read in to recipes. And without proper baking knowledge, it's hard to read a recipe and see how it is going to make a brownie fudgey in the middle and crackly on top. So we rely on words like 'best' and get excited, sometimes for no reason at all. Obviously baking more is a way around this. But I want to bake more + understand more and do so in a systematic way. Rely less on the words and more on an ability to read a list of ingredients and a method and be able to think well, I can imagine how those babies will turn out and I'm interested. 
And as for chocolate cake, I think the things you raise are absolutely important for finding the right recipe. What we are looking for in a go-to chocolate cake? Because if we don't know what we are looking for, then how will we know when we get there? Huh?

And of course, we don't need to be looking for the same thing necessarily. Though I think in this case we will be.

Ok, my situation, for me: I don't want a chocolate cake that is too light and airy, and nor do I want a chocolate cake that is too heavy and dense. I want something that is in between. This is not something that is easy to come across. So often, chocolate cakes swing towards the super duper decadent. That ain’t right for me. Because it basically means that it is only OK to have it as dessert. And if I want a chocolate dessert, there are so many places I can go. Chocolate tart, chocolate mousse, chocolate gelati, chocolate self-saucing pudding. But cake, man. Cake is for the afternoon. Not exclusively, obviously. But it needs to be something that will be right at home in the afternoon. That is cake's time to shine, in my opinion.  I guess that's why they so often swing in the other direction, to light and airy town, where I assume cocoa is what gives it the chocolate flavour. But that's not right for me either.  If chocolate is involved, then I want it to get out front and centre.

But, and here's the tricky thing, I still want it to be cake. Not chocolate mousse, or tart or what have you. I want it to be cake.

This picture from the internet looks like a good solid chocolate cake

J:  I totally agree about the cake. That airy cake of Deb's is from a Swiss roll or cream layer cake recipe. And it is great like that, and i think would be great on its own, but on its own I'd probably have to eat half of it to get my chocolate fill. I think we are really after the same thing here. Something quite chocolatey, not a fudge packer, but with a hint of fudgeyness. But really, just a good chocolatey cake. With a nice crumb (whatever that means), moist, great with tea in the afternoon, enough to satisfy a chocolate craving and cake craving. Chocolate cake!

I am really looking forward to this experiment!

K: I think we are totally looking for the same thing, which is going to make it a particularly useful experiment. I'm really excited too. I'm going to start looking up recipes and start a matrix! 

Woot!

Next blog revisited (PM)

The world is food crazy, that's for sure. And even though I hate the word blogosphere I guess I have to use it here to say the blogosphere is food crazy too. Ugh. Gross. Sorry you guys. Austin particularly so. But as Tony Soprano would say, what are you gonna do? Tony Soprano. Now there's a man who likes food.

But enough of that. It's MSC's weekly food day and I have a food question.

Does this chocolate cake look good to you guys?

Sometimes I miss the dense floury chocolate cakes of my childhood, as distinct from the dense fudgy chocolate cakes of my adulthood. This one looks like a proper floury chocolate cake, the kind that you might have found in your school lunch box as a playlunch snack if you were one of those kids who got cake in their lunch boxes.
That appeals to me. A lot.
But it looks pretty dry. Especially the 'crust', which I'm pretty sure cakes aren't even meant to have, are they? And the lack of butter concerns me.
But the other ingredients seem pleasing. Dark sugar. Maple syrup. Stout! Plus, I love the word Bundt. It's a no-nonsense word, but also somehow a little cute.
I think I'm going to make it tonight.