Hot Fudge Sundae Cake!

Sometimes you want (AKA I want!) dessert and the impulse is to have something from your (my) youth.  Of course I want chocolate, too.  What came to mind was a cake that also has pudding with it.

I recall the title of the recipe to be something like "Impossible Cake" or "Pudding Cake," however Betty Crocker calls it "Hot Fudge Sundae Cake."

The intriguing aspect of it is that you make a cake batter then put a topping on it, pour on hot water, and bake it.  In the process, the cake forms on top and the topping forms a sauce or pudding underneath.  Who figured this out???  

It is also interesting in that it has no eggs, which my friends who are allergic to eggs appreciate.  They don't get cake often because of eggs.  Finally, you mix the whole thing in the pan, cutting down on the amount of dishes to wash afterwards.  This is excellent.

So let's run with Betty, using her recipe on page 258 of her 1984 printing of Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

ISBN 0-307-09800-1  Sunfaded from years of ownership.

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

1 3/4 cup hottest tap water

Ice cream

No ice cream.  : (

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix flour, granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa, the baking powder, and salt in ungreased square pan, 9x9x2 inches.  Mix in milk, oil and vanilla with a fork until smooth.  Stir in nuts.  Spread in pan.  Sprinkle with brown sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa.  Pour hot water over batter.

Bake 40 minutes.  While warm, spoon into dessert dishes and top with ice cream.  Spoon sauce from pan onto each serving.  9 servings.

My Notes

I chose to use pecans for the optional nuts.  

I was out of brown sugar, but did you know you can make it?  I started with granulated sugar and mixed in enough molasses to make it resemble brown sugar.  Using the wire attachment on my mixer did a good job of distributing the molasses.  I didn't measure, but I would guess about 1 1/2 cups of sugar to about 1/3 cup molasses did it.  There were some lumps that I pressed out and others I ignored.  I noticed that the leftovers were even more like brown sugar after they had set overnight.

I didn't have a 9x9 pan but I used a rectangular pan that was close in volume to the square pan.

Use a fork to mix the dry ingredients together so you can reach the corners of the pan well.  

Once the batter was made, I spread the chopped nuts over it and somewhat mixed them in with a fork.  

Sprinkle the brown sugar and cocoa evenly over the entire surface of the batter.

Dry ingredients mixed and spread in pan.

Now they are wet and spread in pan.

Nuts on top and "mixed" in.

Water added.

Done!

The Verdict

Notice the directions say to serve it warm, not hot.  I learned earlier in life that when it is hot, the sauce is too runny and difficult to serve.  When the cake is warm, the sauce is thicker.  But also, when the leftovers are cold, the sauce is a definite pudding in texture.  

It tasted exactly how I recalled it -- good!  Chocolaty in a "from cocoa" point of view, sweet but not bad, and the sauce is a nice touch.  I didn't have ice cream, but that didn't matter.  I would have chosen vanilla to complement the "hot fudge" aspect and chocolate flavor.

The cake is definitely cake.  This was the first time I had nuts with it, which I liked.  So the texture was crunchy from the nuts, chewy from the cake, and creamy from the sauce.  You really can't go wrong with this.

My guest taster thought it was rich.  I don't think it was rich as compared to a cheesecake.  

Success!

Cake above, pudding below.  Amazing!

Betty Crocker suggests modifications:  use butterscotch chips or miniature marshmallows or raisins for the nuts.  Or a mixture of peanut butter and peanuts for the nuts.

I would suggest (without having tried it) to use coffee instead of water and to include cinnamon or other sweet spices to enhance the flavors.  

There is, on the next page, a similar recipe called "Lemon Pudding Cake" (can be modified to lime), if you are not interested in chocolate.  It does call for eggs, though.

Bizcochos de chocolate -- Chocolate biscuits, a Pinedo recipe

As I was reading through my translations of the Pinedo book, I tried to imagine the recipes--how they were made and what they were like when they were completed.  (Search this blog using the keyword "Pinedo" to see more details about this book.)

Some recipes didn't seem to be complete.  I left open the possibility that a recipe might be using a technique I was unaware of, so I didn't automatically assume the recipe was wrong.  Often I looked at other books or websites to see if I could find the same or similar recipes for confirmation.

This recipe, Bizcochos de chocolate, found on page 30, was one that caught my attention.  "Bizcocho" can mean a biscuit, a muffin, or a cake.  Ms. Pinedo used different words for muffin and cake, so I translated it as "Chocolate biscuits."

My Translation

Chocolate biscuits.

Beat or stir six fresh eggs well in a mortar, with one ounce of fine powdered chocolate and four ounces of well-ground sugar. All this is mashed, as I said, in a mortar until it turns into a paste; it is placed on papers or in molds.

I noticed there was no flour mentioned, which seemed odd to me.  So I looked at one of Ms. Pinedo's recipe sources, Nuevo cocinero mejicano (NCM), and found the same recipe on page 77.  That recipe said to use four ounces of flour and ten ounces of powdered sugar.

Ah, a challenge!

I wondered if Ms. Pinedo found a way to make the biscuits without using flour, or if she just made a mistake.  I had to try her recipe.

I had to decide what she meant by powdered chocolate.  My instinct was to get a tablet of Mexican chocolate, the kind you dissolve in hot milk or water for a beverage.  That would provide the chocolate flavor, some fat, and some added flavors like vanilla or cinnamon.

My Redaction (first attempt)

1 ounce Mexican chocolate 

6 eggs

4 ounces powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a pan with parchment paper or set out paper muffin cups.

Crush the chocolate tablet in a mortar until finely powdered.  Use a sieve as necessary to separate the powder from the pieces that still need to be crushed.

Mortar and pestle at the ready!

Crushed to a powder.

Mix the chocolate, sugar, and eggs together.  ...  ...  ...

My Notes

This is where I ran into problems.  When the ingredients were mixed, the result was very soupy.  It was clear that the wet-to-dry ratio was wrong.  I was convinced that if I tried to bake it in any amount, I would end up with an omelette.

Chocolate omelette?

It is possible that my large eggs were bigger than those Ms. Pinedo used.  Perhaps I should have used four instead of six.  However, it did not seem likely this recipe was correct.

So I switched to NCM's version.  I added the four ounces of flour and six more ounces of powdered sugar to the mixture.

Improving the wet-to-dry ratio

A thorough mixing yielded a mixture that was more like a batter, although it did not become a paste as the recipes described.  It was this I decided to bake.

Batter up!

I expected cookies, so I used a ladle to put some batter onto parchment paper and some in a thin layer inside muffin cups.

They baked for 7 minutes, then cooled so I could handle them.  

I was surprised at how fluffy they were!  Even the very thin ones on the paper had risen and had air bubbles.  

On paper

In muffin cup

The flavor was good -- I could taste the flavors from the Mexican chocolate (vanilla, cinnamon) but they didn't really taste like chocolate.  I think if you call it a chocolate biscuit, it should taste like chocolate.  

I decided I should try to bake the ones in the muffin cups with more batter, to get more of a muffin-like result.  I filled the cups to about half full.  Those baked for 15 minutes, which was just right.  A pick inserted in the middle came out clean.

I liked these, too.  The flavor was the same as the thinner ones.  There was more to bite into, which I liked.  One thing that bothered me were the "tubes" I could see inside the biscuit.  This made me think of quick breads that are stirred too much.  The texture wasn't quite right - they were a little rubbery.  One guest taster thought they were dry.  And I still wanted to taste chocolate.

There should not be tubes

So I took the rest of the batter and mixed in 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder.  This made the batter thicker.  These baked for 15 minutes, too, at half full or a little more.

Now that looks like chocolate.

Contrast:  with cocoa powder on the left.

These definitely tasted like chocolate.  The texture was better!  I suspect I should have started with the cocoa powder instead of the tablet of Mexican chocolate.

Barely any tubes.  More even texture.

My guest taster liked them all but agreed that the chocolate biscuits were the best.  

My next goal was to determine what recipe would work without having to make all the adjustments.  I wanted to start with cocoa powder (not Mexican chocolate), flour, and powdered sugar.  Then I would add the beaten eggs one at a time until I thought the wet-to-dry ratio was right.  

It turns out that three eggs was just right.  Two made it dry, and three made it a thick batter.  No, I never got a paste.

My Redaction (final attempt)

4 ounces flour

10 ounces powdered sugar

1 ounce cocoa powder

3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Set out 10 - 12 paper muffin cups on a baking sheet or in a muffin tin.

Mix dry ingredients together.  Beat the eggs together, then add to the dry mixture.  Stir well.

Ladle or spoon into muffin cups; fill about half full.  Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean.

A thick batter

Into the cups.  This is too full.

Notice the smooth tops?

Dense.  Moist.

The Verdict

The smooth tops after baking gave me a hint.  One bite told me the rest.  These are brownies!

Or perhaps proto-brownies.  They weren't as dense and moist as a typical modern brownie, and they weren't "fudgy", but they tasted like chocolate and were enjoyable to eat.  

Comparing them to modern brownies, they did not require butter (which would have made them moister) or baking powder/soda.  They didn't need salt or vanilla.  If I had baked them for about 18 minutes instead of 20, they might have been moister.  

The flavor was chocolate, the sweetness level was just right, and I liked the texture.  They were chewy, too.

Success, finally!

Happy New Year Twelve! - Chocolate Mousse Cake to Celebrate (part 2)

Yesterday I posted on how to make the chocolate chiffon layers for my 12th year of food blogging celebration.  Today I show how to assemble the cake.  Click here to see yesterday's post.

I'm using a recipe for Chocolate Mousse Cake as found on pages 134-135 in The Greyston Bakery Cookbook, by Helen Glassman and Susan Postal.

ISBN 0-87773-323-6

It is time to bring all the parts together!

Chocolate Mousse Cake

1 recipe Chocolate Chiffon Layers (2 layers, baked and cooled)

Chocolate Mousse:

3 cups heavy whipping cream

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

3/4 cup sugar

Chocolate Water Glaze:

8 ounces semisweet chocolate

1/2 cup water

1/8 cup simple syrup (see directions below)

1/8 cup beaten egg (1/2 egg)

4-ounce semisweet chocolate bar, slightly softened in a warm place

Carefully split cooled cake layers in half.  Place carefully on waxed paper on a flat surface.

Mousse:

Whip cream with sifted cocoa and sugar until quite firm, using an electric mixer.

Place first cake layer cut side down on cake plate.  This prevents cake crumbs from coming loose in the mousse.  Spread top evenly with about 3/4 cup mousse.

Repeat with additional layers, always placing cut side down. 

Frost the entire cake, top and sides, with remaining mousse, covering thinly but completely.  Chill in freezer about 1 hour.

 Chocolate Water Glaze:

Melt semisweet chocolate and water in heavy saucepan over low heat.  Stir well to make a smooth chocolate syrup.

Blend in the 1/8 cup simple syrup, made by boiling 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup powdered sugar together for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for 3 - 4 minutes.

Blend in the beaten 1/2 egg and mix thoroughly.

Let glaze cool until it is just a little warmer than body temperature.

To Finish:

Carefully shave warmed chocolate bar with a potato peeler or sharp paring knife.  Use the entire 4-ounce bar.

Pour the warm glaze on the chilled mousse cake, sides first, smoothing with a knife, followed by the top.  The top should be as smooth and even as possible and should be poured on, not spread like a frosting.

Press the chocolate shavings all around the sides, working quickly before the glaze sets.  Keep refrigerated until you are ready to indulge.

Ingredients for the mousse

Ingredients for the water glaze

My Notes

I make the simple syrup before starting on any of the other steps, although you have time to make it during the 1 hour chilling time.  Once the powdered sugar and water mixture comes to a boil, turn the heat down to medium low and simmer.  Stir occasionally.

To split the layers, I prefer to use toothpicks as guides and dental floss or heavy thread to cut.  This keeps everything accurate while making the layers simple to split.  See the pictures below.

If any of the layers break while moving them, just piece them back together in place.  

Chill the mixing bowl and beater before making the whipped cream. 

Plop a spoonful of mousse in the middle of the layer and then work the mousse out to the edges.  This cuts down on crumbs embedding in the mousse, too.  Aim to even it off across the top before the next layer is placed on it. 

I use up all (well, most) of the remaining mousse to frost the entire cake, even if the layer isn't thin.  Then I eat the little bit of mousse that is in the bowl.

Once the sides have mousse on them, make a final pass over them with a clean, slightly damp spreader held vertically.  This smooths the sides.

When mixing the beaten 1/2 egg into the water glaze, whisk the mixture while drizzling in the egg.

Shaving warm chocolate bars is messy!  Chocolate gets all over my hands.  Plan for that mess during the procedure.  I included in the pictures below the difference between the small shavings of a room-temperature bar and the long ones of the warm bar.  I thought some were too long to go on the cake well, so after they cooled to room temperature, I broke them.  That worked well.

I used a ladle to put the glaze on the sides.  Once some was on the sides, I used a lightly buttered spreader to even it out.  The order was:  glaze the sides, then the top, then smooth the sides, then press on the shavings.

I did my best to get the glaze on smooth and evenly, but I did manage to drop a piece of shaved chocolate on the top, which messed up that smoothness.  So I took a spoon and swirled the glaze decoratively around the edges of the top.  That covered the mistake and still looked good.

Here are pictures of the process:

Place 5 or 6 toothpicks at the halfway point of the layer.

Wrap the dental floss around the cake.  Pull the ends to cut the cake.

One half of a layer, neatly split.

The mousse

The first layer with mousse

All layers with mousse.

Ready for the freezer!

Chocolate and water.

Smooth.

Cooling.

Room temperature shavings.

Warmed chocolate shavings.

Glazing the sides.  Spread the glaze upward after the pour.

Glazing the top.

The final cake.  Note I cleaned up around the bottom of the cake, too.

The Verdict

I imagined Paul is in the tent and is judging my creation.  The first step is to critique the portioning of the layers and mousse.

I think Paul Hollywood would say I did a good job in getting the proportions right:  the mousse layers are fairly even in their thickness and are close to (but smaller than) the thickness of the cake layers. The water glaze thickness is consistent across the top of the cake and not too thick on the sides.

Generous but not too much so.  Well, I really don't know what Paul would say, but I'm happy with it!

The next step is to judge the flavor.  I love this cake!  The layers are rich and slightly bitter.  The mousse is light in both flavor and texture, keeping the cake from becoming too heavy.  The water glaze adds a bit of chewiness, which is nice.

But let's not go with just my very-biased opinion.  I shared the cake with several other guest tasters.  Everyone thought it was GOOD.  One guest, AD, noted that she has purchased a similar cake from her favorite bakery, but that mine was better overall and definitely more generous with the chocolate shavings.  

Another guest, FT, put her piece in the freezer until she was ready to eat it.  The book authors suggest this idea and say if you only let it defrost a little, it is like eating an ice cream cake.  FT agrees.

Success!  Again!  I'm labeling this recipe as a Most Favorite and not waiting for the end of the year.  At some point I'll try other cake recipes from the book, or at least I think.  : )

Hint:  the authors give us many variations on the mousse flavors along with ideas on how to use them other than on cake.  You can see some examples on the book cover picture.  Well worth it!

Happy New Year Twelve! - Chocolate Mousse Cake to Celebrate (part 1)

Wow.  2023 marks the beginning of the twelfth year of this blog.  For the record, this is the 263rd post and there have been more than 110,000 page views.  There are followers on this blog and also on the Pinterest board of the same name.

My cooking abilities have improved because of my blogging experience:  one guest taster noted that many of the recipes I have tried could be considered "technical challenges" a la the Great British Baking Show.  So true!  They fall into the category of "here are the ingredients and a general guideline of what to do, now make it and it should taste good."  The thought made me laugh and also reflect on how my attitude towards cooking has loosened over the years.  

This has increased my confidence in my ability to create.  For example, after a holiday gathering I took a variety of leftovers from my refrigerator and made a stew:  olives, pickled mushrooms, andouille sausage, chopped carrots, cherry tomatoes, French onion soup, and half a jar of marinara sauce were lubricated with some beef broth and simmered until the scent was luscious.  I didn't add any other seasonings and it was just right, served up with leftover biscuits on the side.  A wonderful light dinner after several days of holiday treats.

My blogging explorations have wandered far and wide across time and cultures.  It is what I hoped for when I started blogging, and yet went even further than I had anticipated.  I did not expect to translate an historic cookbook, and I did not know about cookbooks from, for example, medieval Syria, medieval Transylvania, ancient Baghdad, railroads, and Ukraine.  My time at several culinary symposia was well-spent in trying recipes, techniques, and new foods, and (most importantly) meeting people who love historical cooking, too.  I have learned and made friends.

I plan on continuing this blog and will get back to the California Food Project blog when time permits.  I enjoy learning more about the food and history of my home state.  Just the other day I read a book containing letters written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (of the Little House on the Prairie fame) while visiting her daughter Rose in San Francisco during its Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.  Along with getting a visitor's view on that world's fair, there are a few recipes at the end of the book.  I plan to try one.

So I decided to celebrate these accomplishments with a recipe that could be considered a Most Favorite, but I didn't want to wait until December to post it.  

The cookbook is The Greyston Bakery Cookbook by Helen Glassman and Susan Postal.  The authors both trained at the Tassajara Bakery in San Francisco then helped to found the Greyston Bakery, which is operated by the Zen Community of New York.  From the inside flap of the dust jacket:

In just a few short years, the Greyston Bakery ... has established itself as one of the leading practitioners of the fine art of baking.  Greyston uses only the finest natural ingredients -- rich, dark chocolate, real butter, pure maple syrup, and fresh fruit -- to achieve the delicate textures and subtle flavors that make its cakes, cookies, and breads epicurean delights.

ISBN-10  0-87773-323-6

I haven't made many of their recipes (because calories!) but what I have made was good and the directions were specific enough to be really helpful.  The chocolate mousse cake is one I have made many times since I obtained the book in 1989, but not recently.  Sometimes I just make the mousse filling (using one-third of the quantities) as it makes a lovely dessert all by itself.  Recently I modified the mousse filling and used powdered ginger instead of cocoa powder to make a topping for a pumpkin cheesecake.

This cake requires two of their recipes:  one for the chiffon layers, found on page 133, and the other for the completed cake, found on pages 134-135.  This post covers the layers.  The next post covers assembling the cake.  Let's get started, shall we?

Chocolate Chiffon Layers

6 egg whites 
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
dash salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter two round 8-inch cake pans.

You will need three bowls (two large, one small).

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form.  Gradually add 1/2 cup of the sugar and continue beating in large bowl of mixer until very stiff.

Mix oil, egg yolks, water, and vanilla in small bowl.

Sift dry ingredients together into the other large bowl:  cocoa, flour, rest of sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt.

Add yolk mixture to dry mixture.

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites and gently incorporate.

Pour into two prepared pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, until the sides shrink and top springs back when lightly pressed.

My Notes

Note that the sugar is divided, and I've found it helps to measure it out into the 1/2 cup amount for the whites and then measure separately the 1 cup that goes into the dry mixture.  

I've also found it helps to put the small bowl with the containers of the wet ingredients in one place on the counter and the large bowl for the dry ingredients in another.  This organizational scheme reduces mistakes (don't ask!).  I usually use a measuring cup as my small bowl.

I followed the directions in order and had no issues with the process.

My layers were ready after 27 minutes.  I let them cool for 2 1/2 hours before moving on to creating the cake.

What follows are pictures of the process with comments along the way.  

Soft peaks and ready for the sugar.

Stiff!

Most of the wet ingredients.

Dry ingredients mixed.

Wet and dry mixed.

Batter completed with egg whites folded in.

Apportion the batter evenly between the pans.  

Finished layer baked to perfection!