Skip to main content

Jeweled Chocolate Cake

This recipe is listed as one of Ruth Reichl’s favorites. In case you’re not familiar with her, she is a chef, was the food critic for the New York Times and then the editor of Gourmet magazine. She’s written a number of books, two of which I own because she’s a splendid writer.

Here’s the link to the cake recipe: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ruth-reichl-save-me-the-plums-memoir-recipes/ and the filling recipe: https://www.food.com/recipe/orange-citrus-cake-filling-147364. 

This cake totally reminds me of the kind of chocolate cake you might have for a kid’s birthday party, topped with frosting and all kinds of decorations. The cake is light, not overwhelmingly chocolate, can be cut into two layers, and could likely take on anything you put with it, including ice cream.

The cake takes about 1 ½ hours, start to cooling and the accompanying brittle can be made while it bakes. I love cakes that can be mixed by hand with a whisk and this cake fits that bill.

Praline chopped (left) and syrup (right

Changes I made:

I used sour milk (lemon juice and milk) instead of buttermilk. If I made it again, I think I’d sub sour cream instead.

Instead of baking chocolate, I threw in an equal amount of Mexican chocolate because I had it on had and it had sat on my pantry shelf long enough.

As for the praline, I used walnuts because I had them on hand and it likely wasn’t as tasty as hazelnuts, but it was still good.  I toasted the nuts at 300 degrees instead of 350 because I did it while the cake was in the oven. The recipe doesn’t specify a temperature for the syrup, but I believe 290-300 degrees is about right.

The recipe calls for a mascarpone topping, which of course I did not have, so made an orange filling, split the layers, and put it between them and on top of the cake (used potato starch instead of corn starch):

          

Whisked mixture, batter in pan, cutting in layers

Review:

·         Were the ingredients easy to find? To make this recipe fully, you’ll likely need a trip to the grocery store for hazelnuts, mascarpone, and possibly slivered almonds.

·         Were the directions easy to follow? Absolutely.

·         Did it come out as expected? The cake and brittle came out as expected. As for the filling, I don’t know why I selected one with cornstarch because it came out as one would expect a filling with that ingredient would.

·         How did it taste? Here’s the hard part. If I had followed the recipe as written, I think it would have been delicious. However, the orange filling wasn’t orangey enough and, because it was made with cornstarch, had that gelatinous texture, not my favorite. The brittle softened in the filling, so the crunch was lost.

·         Will I make it again? I’ll make the brittle again, maybe with pecans. And yes, I’ll try the cake again with the correct ingredients as I’m more than willing to give any of Reichl’s recipes a second chance.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Salted Peanut Caramel Tart

 This salted peanut and caramel tart was fun to make if you don’ t mind a bunch of moving parts, which I don’t. It’s a layer of crust, then meringue, and finally topping, all with timing you’ll need to pay attention to. The base is easy because it is pressed into the tin rather than rolled out (I used a small glass to get it smooth), but the topping needs to be used within seconds. It’s a Milk Street recipe; mine is in a cookbook, but the recipe is available online: https://www.177milkstreet.com/recipes/salted-peanut-caramel-tart . I’m guessing it could be made gluten-free, but dairy-free would be difficult as the recipe calls for whipping cream and butter. This isn’t a last-minute dessert. The crust is chilled for at least fifteen minutes, then baked for an hour, then cooled. The whipped egg whites and hot syrup for the meringue need to be ready concurrently, with the melted peanut butter soon after. The peanut topping will harden almost as soon as it’s off the heat, so it has...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chocolate Amaretto Cake

This recipe comes from The Fiddlehead Cookbook  via the Fiddlehead restaurant in Juneau, Alaska, though I’m not sure the place is still there. I purchased the cookbook on a visit during an Alaskan cruise in 2007. The cookbook was published in 1991. Here is a similar recipe, but the one I made did not use a cake mix, as many on the Internet do: https://www.cooks.com/recipe/rz3zb64n/amaretto-chocolate-cake.html I imagine it would be a copywrite infringement to include the recipe verbatim here but let me know if there’s a way around that.   The ingredients are interesting and include mayonnaise, buttermilk, sour cream, and almond flour and it is baked in an angel food or Bundt pan, something with a hole in the middle. This cake could likely be made gluten-free using a gluten-free flour mix, but I don’t think there’s a way around the dairy. This cake is stirred by hand and I always appreciate not getting out the mixer. You’ll need a couple of hours start to finish, and that incl...
Post a Comment
Read more