Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

It is evident that I have to make a New Year's Resolution, even though we are already nearing the end of the new year's first month. You see, I have made a terrible mistake twice...and on the same day. I acted recklessly and baked cakes either by ignoring instructions or by not questioning them. Today's post is a lesson in rebellion and how wilful obliteration of time-honoured and tested principles will not yield light and fluffy cakes. Because you are infinitely more intelligent than I am, you will not do as I did and buck against your nature, which, for me, is to act with restraint and consideration - practically virtues in the world of baking.


The Resolution: just do as baking instructions say - no questions!

I wanted to surprise a beloved aunt with a birthday cake. I know, I'm terribly sweet. If only I could have lived out my day's goal of being nephew par excellence. I was in a bit of a tizz deciding what to bake...definitely something rich but also something unexpected. I am not really an online recipe-searcher, preferring instead to reach into my trove of cookery books and food magazines. I pulled out the magazines several days before the birthday celebration and got side-tracked re-reading articles and creating lists of restaurants to go to when I am next in the US. I decided looking through them was not a good idea and turned to the index of every cookery book I could get my hands on.

I chanced upon a previously unnoticed recipe for the Professor's Chocolate Cake in Beatrice Ojakangas' Scandinavian Feasts. Known as Professorin Suklaakakku in Finland and Professorns Chokladkaka in Sweden, Professor's Chocolate Cake is so-named because it is meant to appeal to "educated tastes." I suppose this comes from the density and gooey interior of the cake, different to traditional sponge-based cakes, which I turn to later in this post.

The first error rests with not clicking to the facts of the low amount of flour and the lack of baking powder. Somehow I had it in my mind that I would produce a generous-looking cake, overflowing with chocolate goodness - the properties of any respectful birthday cake. Alas, it was squat and more like a brownie than a cake. And this is how it was meant to turn out, I suppose. Perhaps directly translating it as a "cake" was a bit misleading, but I really should have thought about the ingredients and what they would produce before launching head-first (without brain) into it.

The Professor's Chocolate Cake (or Chocolate and Walnut Brownie)
(from Beatrice Ojakangas' Scandinavian Feasts)

180g/6oz 70% dark chocolate (recipe specifies semisweet)
170g/6oz unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs, separated
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 chopped walnuts (filberts or pecans will also do)
1 tablespoon instant coffee
icing sugar, for garnish (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F and prepare (butter and flour) a 23cm/9" springform cake pan.
2) In a small saucepan, melt chocolate, butter and sugar together, then set aside to cool.
3) In a stainless steel bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff (drier than soft peaks).
4) Stir egg yolks into the melted chocolate mixture.
5) Add flour, walnuts and coffee before folding in the egg whites.
6) Pour into the cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes. This will be slightly gooey in the centre, so it will not completely pass the toothpick test, but you don't want the toothpick to come out all wet.
7) Once cooled, sift icing sugar over the "cake," if so desired.

In my mind I had concocted a gorgeous chocolate cake over which I was going to further celebrate with a ganache. You can imagine my surprise when a low-lying excuse of a cake came out of the oven. And after it had cooled down, it collapsed further. Bugger. Then the wheels turned and I realised I had been foolish to not look at the ratio of ingredients. Furthermore, the walnuts should have been more chopped, though not finely, for the "cake" did not easily cut into uniform wedges. If I had known that this would be a brownie, I would have been ecstatic with the result. The richness of the chocolate fills every mouthful; it is all things a brownie should be.

However, Professor's Chocolate Cake was not the birthday cake of my imagination, so, with some time still to spare, I set about baking something traditional: Victoria Sponge. These are the birthday cakes of my childhood. Soft, fluffy cakes with billowy cream and generous spoonfuls of delectable jam. I always preferred it to chocolate cake as a kid, a jam-connoisseur from way back. (Making jam is on my list of things "to do," but at the rate I'm going - disavowing conventional wisdom, the subject of this post - that should not happen until I have my sensible head back on again.)

A Victoria Sponge is a breeze to make providing you divide the batter into two pans, although Nigella Lawson does not say why this must be. This is no excuse, however, to put the batter into one pan. I have now been reminded that what happens with all cakes is that they collapse a bit as they cool down. Why this oft-witnessed act was effaced from memory at the time of my laziness, I do not know. I was acting as though I knew what I was doing, like I'd seen it all before. I also made a blunder with the flour, which is supposed to be self-rising flour. I just used all-purpose flour without adding 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 tablespoon of salt per cup of all-purpose flour to create a likeness. Finally, it seems that the idea of dividing the batter is so that it can rise as high as is possible given the little placed into each pan. The objective is to create a fluffy-as-can-be sponge. Not a cake.

A ganache was made with semisweet chocolate, as I had envisioned it for the Professor's Chocolate Cake, when in hindsight it should have been made of dark chocolate in order to create a greater and richer contrast to the "sponge." Also, I played with the ganache too much when I should have just let it melt without my help. I should only have whisked it once it had cooled and set up a bit (per Linda Carucci). Nigella was a bit vague there, probably because she had made it a million times with great success, although mine looks like hers does in the photo for her Boston Cream Pie. I have seen ganache made a million times with great success but had not made it myself...All I had witnessed, again, went out the window as I merrily went on with my whisk-happy self. I think the reason for leaving the ganache alone is to prevent the appearance of little air pockets that will get trapped and create an effect resembling a chip in a windscreen...As you see below, I had many a chip in the glass screen of my ganache.

Victoria Sponge
(from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess)

125g/8oz unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 1/3 cups self-rising cake flour (see above note if you only have all-purpose), sifted
2 tablespoons cornflour
(1 teaspoon baking powder, do not add this if you are making this with a food processor)
3-4 tablespoons milk
4 heaped tablespoons of jam (I used black cherry jam)
1/2 cup cream/heavy cream

1) Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F and prepare two 20cm/8" cake pans (best done, in this case, with the aid of parchment or wax paper).
2) Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, then add the vanilla extract.
3) Add one egg at a time, but between each egg add one tablespoon of flour.
4) Fold in the remainder of the flour and the cornflour until fully incorporated.
5) Add as much milk as necessary to bind to a dropping consistency.
6) Pour into prepared cake pans and level with a butter knife or palette knife/offset spatula.
7) Bake for approximately 25 minutes, when the cakes should be pulling away from the edges. The sponge will pass the "toothpick/skewer test."
8) Turn out of pans after sponges have rested on a wire rack for about ten minutes, then leave them to cool completely.
9) Once cooled, put the jam on the top of one of the sponges.
10) Whip the heavy cream until voluptuous and billowy, then scrape it out on top of the jam.
11) Top with the other sponge. You can sprinkle sugar on top, if you so please, or make a ganache.

Ganache
(from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess)

1/2 cup cream/heavy cream
1 teaspooon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon unsalted butter
150g/5oz semisweet chocolate (Ms. Lawson actually recommends dark/bittersweet), chopped into little pieces

1) Warm all of the ingredients in a saucepan over low heat.
2) Bring to the boil (bubbling around the edges; the chocolate should have melted by this point), then remove from the heat.
3) Whisk until smooth and thick.
4) Leave to cool before spooning over the Victoria Sponge. Don't let it set entirely because you need to pour it over the cake, but once it has been spooned over the cake you can let it set properly.

As you can see, my sponge did not fluff up (for lack of a better expression). This is not as I had hoped, but all fault rests on my unbalanced shoulders, tipping too much under the weight of my fallibility. Though delicious (what could not be with such glorious ingredients...especially the divine French black cherry jam), I am not content and vow to you that I will not act without reservation again. There is something to be said about thought and consideration, especially when it comes to baking. You really cannot just do as you please unless you understand the principles behind the methods of preparation. If an author does not give all the information, don't do as I did and just make it up. Stop and do some cross-referencing, or follow the recipes exactly.

Lessons learned.

Labels: Beatrice Ojakangas, Cake, Chocolate, Chocolate Brownie, Ganache, Nigella Lawson, Sponge Cake, Victoria Sponge, Walnuts