chocolate baby shower

I read somewhere that pregnant women who eat chocolate have calm, well-tempered, easily pleased babies. With that sound piece of scientific research I went ahead and made Tartine's Devil's Food Cake for a little shower I hosted in honor of my dear friend Odette. Odette who is due in a matter of weeks (this whole baby thing continues to amaze me). With a 'better-safe-than-sorry' attitude, I figured it was probably wise that she eat as much chocolate as possible in the hopes of an even sweeter little baby girl.

On the topic of little girls, when I was a little girl I hated chocolate. I know. I hated chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream and chocolate bars. My favorite ice cream flavor was, and still is, strawberry, and I loved yellow cakes with vanilla frosting (have you had yellow cake recently? so good) and my favorite candy was anything of the gummi variety. Oh how things change. Now I love chocolate, so much so that I have to will myself not to eat it. Today, Sunday, is currently day two of a no chocolate stint, started after I ate an entire box of chocolate that I picked up at the Salon du Chocolat in Zürich. An entire box of little chocolate prailines, nutty chocolate slivers and orange crinkle chocolate thingys. I'd like to think that anyone in my situation (I mean you saw those chocolates right?) would have done the same thing, but I bet some of you out there have slightly more self restraint than me.

But I doubt you'd have enough self restraint not to have a couple of slices of this cake. Somehow this cake is more chocolatey than a plain bar of chocolate, and richer too. It could be described as chocolate covered in chocolate and caramel and sprinkled with more chocolate. The cake itself is perfectly moist and just dense enough to maintain a sensation of melted chocolate. It's not a cake you make on a whim because it takes some time and effort to make the separate components and then bring them all together, but I don't think you'd want this to be a whim cake, it is a special occasion cake. And whats more special than a new baby girl on the way?

The domes of the cake are saved to make the crumb topping. I must have eaten about 1/4 of the broken up domes (sitting there on the cookie sheet to left in the photo). The cake was still slightly warm and the little pieces tasted so much like brownie bites. As I sat there munching away I contemplated a 'Devil's Food Cake' ice cream - yum!
Over each layer you spread caramel and then chocolate ganache before topping with another cake layer. At the end you cover the whole thing in chocolate ganache (before covering with ganache I surrounded the cake with parchment paper to catch the drips and drabs, of which there were lots).

Devil's Food Layer Cake

Tartine

*this is a fairly involved process so give yourself some time. It's worth it!

** I have given instructions for dressing the cake with the toasted cake crumbs. Tartine notes that you should make more ganache if you chose to skip the toasted crumb topping, but I found that I had plenty of extra ganache so I think you can stick to the recipe below even if you don't want to top with crumbs.

*** I have no idea how to keep this process clean. My cake was super messy, just go with it

cake ingredients

1 3/4 cup // 250 g all purpose flour

4 1/2 tbsp // 60 ml cornstarch

1 tsp // 5 ml baking powder

1/2 tsp // 2 ml baking soda

1 1/4 cup // 115 g cocoa powder

1 tsp // 5 ml salt

1 cup // 225 g unsalted butter

2 3/4 cup // 570g sugar

5 large eggs

1 1/4 cup // 310 ml buttermilk

chocolate ganache ingredients

24 oz // 680 g

3 cups // 750 ml heavy cream

caramel ingredients

2/3 cup // 150 ml heavy cream

1/4 vanilla bean

1 1/4 cup // 240 g sugar

1/4 cup // 60 ml water

1/4 tsp // 1 ml salt

2 tbsp // 30 ml light corn syrup

3/4 tsp // 4 ml lemon juice

4 tbsp // 55 g unsalted butter

the cake

Preheat the oven to 350ºF//180ºC. Butter two 9" cake pans and dust with flour, knocking out the excess. Cut a piece of parchment for the bottom of each pan - this will make getting the cake out much easier.

Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt into a bowl and set aside. In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter until light and creamy and then slowly add the sugar continuing to beat until light in color and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until each is incorporated before adding the next. With the mixer on low, add the flour in 3 batches, alternating with the buttermilk. Stop and scrape down the side of the bowl every once and awhile.

Divide the cake batter between the prepared pans. Bake for about 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean and the top of the cake springs back when lightly touched. Let the cakes cool completely on a wire wrack.

chocolate ganache

While the cakes are cooling you can make the ganache. Place the chocolate in a heat proof bowl. In a separate pan heat the cream until just under a boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit for a minute or two before stirring, allowing the cream to melt the chocolate. Stir until smooth, light, and shiny.

let the ganache come to room temperature, or even a little cooler before trying to ice the cake.

caramel

Pour the cream in one sauce pan. Split the vanilla bean and scrap the seeds into the cream. Bring to just under a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to low to keep the cream warm

In a second heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar, water, salt and corn syrup. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once dissolved stop stirring and cook until the mixture is amber colored, 5-8 minutes. Remove from heat.

Quickly, but carefully add the cream in a slow stream to the sugar mixture. The mixture will bubble furiously at first, so let it calm down before stirring. Whisk until smooth. Add lemon juice and cool for about 10 minutes.

assembly

Set the oven to 250ºF//121ºC. When the cakes have cooled turn them out of their pans. With a serrated knife slice off the domed portion of each cake, to make the top of each cake flat. The domes will be your cake crumb topping so place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Break up the cake domes. Place in the oven and bake for about an hour or until the crumbs are dry. Let cool and then process with a food processor until finely ground.

Slice each cake into two layers, so that you have 4 layers in all. Place one layer on your chosen serving plater. Spread 3 tablespoons of caramel evenly over the layer. Spread a thin layer of ganache, about 1/4 inch thick, over the caramel. Top with a cake layer. Repeat for layer 2 and 3. When you top with the final 4th layer you do not need to add caramel. At this stage refrigerate the cake for about 1-2 hours until the center seems firm and it's not slipping all over the place. Cover the ganache with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature.

Remove the cake from the fridge and use the rest of the ganache to ice the top and sides. In order for the crumbs to adhere the ganache needs to be soft. (you can use a hairdryer to soften things up if your cake/ganache has hardened). Sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the top and sides of the cake. The sides were challenging, I had to use my hands to catapult crumbs onto the side and then flatten them into the ganache.

Serve the cake at room temperature. You do not need to refrigerate the cake.

We had fun pom-pomming the apartment. Martha Stewart is always there when you need her for an idea.
It was Katie's birthday so the cake doubled as a birthday cake, but don't worry there were plenty of shower-spefic goodies. We made scones, iced cakey cookies, lemon cake, another chocolate cake, a strawberry tart, chocolate birds nests with marzipan eggs, fig-ricotta crostinis, fennel and bean dip and just for good measure, a fruit salad.

Oh, and that life size chocolate bunny is currently sitting by my stove waiting to be turned into some sort of cake, or cookie, or mousse.
It was a wonderful shower and you can be sure that all of the food was enjoyed. The leftover cake found homes outside of my kitchen (thank goodness) and word make it back to me that husbands and kids and friends loved the cake too.
This is the chocolate bunny that kept us company at the dinner table. While we were away the bunny melted and we returned to a bunny with no back or tail.

Speaking of our trip....I'm planning on looking at the photos tonight so hopefully there will be a post soon.

tartine cookies

I spent $54 at Tartine when we were in San Francisco over New Years. We didn't even sit down, that was just takeout. And Tartine is not expensive, it's just that I bought one of everything. Or at least that is what it felt like. If it was in the case or on the counter I wanted to try it. I basically walked down the line and continued pointing to things and then finished off by adding two cellophane bags full of cookies after the cashier had already rung me up. So let's start with the cookies and work backwards. Wrapped in those cellophane bags were coconut macaroons (coconut is just one way into Zach's heart) and crispy orange-currant-oatmeal cookies. Already packed up in the bag when I grabbed the cookies was a lemon tart, a coconut cream tart, five biscotti, two currant scones and a half a loaf of their famous country sourdough bread. And that's not including what was in my brother's bag - gingerbread, brioche bread pudding and some more cookies. Heaven! It was all absolutely heavenly, especially the chocolate coated crust on the coconut cream pie, oh dear me it was good. The bread, hot out of the oven, was also perfect crusty and wonderfully sour, just as I imagined it would be. If you live in SanFran, I hope you are reading this on your ipad while waiting in line at Tartine. No excuses.

Besides the coconut cream pie crust and the crusty sourdough bread one of the tastiest purchases were the orange currant oatmeal cookies. Before tackling the bread at home (which I've been meaning to do for about a year now) I decided to give the cookies a go. I'm usually a chocolate chip cookie girl, as evidenced by the three or four recipes on this blog, but there was just something about these tangy and crispy oatmeal cookies that I loved.

Tartine Orange + Currant Oatmeal Cookies

adapted from Tartine (adapted only because I didn't have nutmet, corn syrup or molasses)

* a note - this dough needs to sit overnight in the fridge, so a little planning ahead is required.

ingredients:

- 1 1/2 cups currants

- 1 1/2 cups oatmeal

- 2 cups all purpose flour

- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (recipe calls for nutmeg)

- 1 cup/ 8oz/ 226g unsalted butter at room temperature

- 1 1/4 cup sugar

- 1 large whole egg

- 1 large egg yolk

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup (recipe calls for 2T corn syrup, 1T molasses)

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 4 teaspoons orange zest

Place the currants in a bowl and cover them with warm water. Let them sit for about 10 minutes or until they have plumped up a bit. Strain and try them.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon (or nutmeg if using) into a mixing bowl and set aside.

Cream the butter and the sugar. Once light in color and consistency, scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the whole egg and then the egg yolk, beating each until incorporated. Follow with the vanilla, maple syrup (or corn syrup and molasses if using), salt and orange zest.

Once the wet ingredient are well mixed add in the flour mixture, the oats and the currants.

Lay out 3 sheets of parchment paper and divide the dough into thirds. Roll the dough into logs about 2 inches in diameter and then wrap them in the parchment paper. Once wrapped press slightly to create an oval shape. Place in the refrigerator over night (or do what I do and place 1 log in the fridge for tomorrow and 2 in the freezer for later).

When ready to bake preheat the oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Unwrap the logs. With a sharp knife slice the logs into ovals about 1/4" thick. Bake the cookies for about 7-10 minutes or until the edges have lightly browned and the centers remain pale. Transfer the cookies to a wire wrack and let them cool.

These cookies are dangerously bite size. It's kinda like eating Pringles, that crunch and crisp gets addictive and you can't stop. Speaking of Pringles, I have an issue where whenever I eat something sweet I then want something salty. I've been eating this cookies and then digging my hand into the potato chip bag. And before we went to Tartine I had just eaten a massive burrito and wanted something sweet. The same is true when I eat ice cream, I then want french fries - McFlurry and a small fry anyone?
Just a couple final snapshots from our trip. The weather was wonderful, typically San Francisco where one minute we were putting on layers and then the next minute we were taking them off.

One quick note about San Francisco. Whenever I'm there I cannot stop thinking about earthquakes. We're driving over a bridge and I'm just thinking, 'not now, not now, just not now'. Anyone else?

talley & julia....french onion soup

I'm watching Julie & Julia for the third time, this week. I initially turned it on because after hunting on youtube for the hilarious onion chopping scene - Julia fumigates her husband right out of their apartment with all of the onion gas - and not finding anything besides the generic movie trailer I decided to turn on the movie. The pile of chopped onions was in the pot, on their slow journey to caramelization, and Julia was on the screen, keeping me company. It was a great, sweet, wine-infused, journey.

Enchantè Julia!

A lot of people have asked me if I'm familiar with the movie. It makes sense. I'm an expat, I cook, I blog. But now after seeing it three more times, I wonder if maybe all those people weren't asking simply if I'd seen it, but rather if it meant something else, if perhaps there was a little 'je ne sais quoi' about the movie. And you know what? I think there might be. Not with the Julie bit, (I find her particularly self important, whiny, and annoying), but with the Julia bit. It makes me laugh and it also makes me appreciate living abroad and the time it has given me to learn to cook. As Julia says, "I'm in heaven here." If only I had her collection of copper pots....and spoke French...

Onion soup, like Caesar salad, was one of my first forays into grownup food. I would eat spaghetti with plain tomato sauce at home, but when we went out to eat I'd order onion soup right alongside my parents. The Burns have eaten a lot of onion soup over the years. If it is on the menu we are likely to order four. My dad taught me to love the cheese that burns and gets all crispy on the sides of the pot, but I learned to love the broth soaked bread and the sweet soft onions all on my own. Thankfully Zach is also an onion soup connisseur. We've come to judge restaurants on their onion soup. It seems fair considering that it's a fairly easy soup to make, hard to screw up, so if you do, we are likely to notice.

Besides onions, one of the essential ingredients for onions soup is a set of little oven safe ramekins. The other day when I was window shopping on Bahnhofstrasse (have I mentioned Zurich is insanely expensive?) I came across a little kitchen store that was selling these Staub mini pots for 5.50chf. In Zurich terms that is basically free, so I bought 4. Thank goodness, because I can now make onion soup all the time.

So this isn't Julia Child's recipe, but she does have one, and you can watch and follow her on youtube. I started this soup with the Tartine recipe in front of me and the cream already in the pot, before I turned on the movie and before I was in love with Julia Child.

onion soup, adapted from Tartine

- 6 large yellow onions (I used 3 large onions and 8 - 9 small ones - they are cheaper) cut into slices 1/4 thick

- 1/2 cup heavy cream (Tartine calls for 1 cup, but the onions were cooking too slowly in all that liquid, maybe I'm too impatient)

- 2 tablespoon unsalted butter

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 2 cups dry white wine

- 6 cups stock (veggie or chicken, I used veggie - see end of post. Tartine calls for 8, but I like my soup a bit denser)

- sliced and toasted bread for top of soup

- Gruyère cheese sliced for soup.

Combine the butter and cream in the bottom of a 5-8 quart pan/pot. Let it heat over medium heat until the butter is melted and then add the onions. Cook and stir occasionally until the onions have softened and are transparent. This might take a while because there are so many onions. Be patient. Turn on a movie. Once transparent, let the cream and onions cook at a slow boil. Cook the onions, without stirring, until the bottom of the pot begins to brown. Again this could take a while, depending on the size of your pot. Stir the onions with a wooden spoon, adding 1/2 cup of wine to deglaze the bottom of the pot, stirring quickly, scraping the bottom of the pan and then leaving the onions to cook until the bottom of the pot browns again, about 6 - 8 minutes. Repeat the process two more times, until the onions take on a deep caramel color. All in all this process took me over an hour, the first part taking me the longest time.

Poor in the stock and bring to a simmer over medium heat, cooking for 15 or so minutes until the broth is well flavored by the onions. Taste and season with salt if needed.

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Toast the bread, until dry and brittle, about 10 minutes. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil, ladle the soup into your little oven safe pots, top with bread and cheese and bake until the cheese is bubbly and caramelized, 20 - 30 minutes.

This soup is ridiculously good. So good that I sent this email to Zach's work email after I first tasted it....

holy *****

this is the best thing i've ever made

ever.

want to bathe in it

you will too

that is word for word, asterisk for asterick, lack of punctuation for lack of punctuation, exactly what I wrote. I guess all of that cheesy goodness impaired my judgement about what is appropriate to send to your husband's work email. whoopsy daisy. But hopefully that will convey to you just how **** good it really is.

. . . the stock. . . As Julia says homemade stock is an essential ingredient for onion soup - why bother making soup from scratch if you aren't going to use homemade stock. I agree.

I recently read An Everlasting Meal, I wonderful book my Tamar Adler, that helped me change the way I approach cooking. Before I read the book I threw away a lot of food; the leafy ends of celery, the ends of onions, the butts of carrots and pretty much any part of a vegetable that I wasn't going to use. Now I throw all of those tails and ends and butts into a pot, cover them with water and let it boil until it's stock. It's pretty much magic. And in Switzerland where you can't buy liquid stock of any kind, it really is a miracle, completely revolutionary.Vegetable stock

- throw whatever ends, tails butts of veggies you have into a pot. If carrots and celery aren't already in the mix then add some, especially the leafy parts and the bulb. Also add an onion, sliced in half, and a head of garlic sliced in half. Sprinkle in some black pepper corns. Poor in water until it covers the veggies and then bring a boil over high heat. Turn down to a simmer and allow to cook until the water has absorbed the vegetable flavors. Taste and season with salt as needed. Strain the veggies and poor liquid into jars and place the jars in the fridge.

The color of the stock will depend on what veggies you use. In the pictures above, in the recipe section, you will notice that the stock is two different colors and that is because it is from two different batches, one had the skin and ends of a butternut squash in it and the other one, well I can't quite remember. Really it's just about feel and whatever scraps you have lying around.

As you can see from the above pictures I saved all the onions ends and skins from the onions that went into this soup and threw them into a pot of stock. I try not to throw any vegetables away at this point. It can always be stock, and you always need stock. Especially with thanksgiving coming up!

* * * *

Bon Appetit !