Last night, I met the cake that changed my mind about cakes. I come from a family without a tradition of homemade cakes. Birthday cakes came from boxes or the grocery store. Given the dubious quality of those cakes, I never really gained an appreciation for cake.
But last night I suddenly had a staggering craving for both chocolate and bourbon. I had a vague memory of a cake that combined the two, but somehow failed to bookmark the web page that I found the recipe on. After a bit of googling, I was excited to find the recipe again, from Molly of Orangette. Even better, her book is released today, so timing couldn't be better.
So, chocolate and bourbon. Yum. Or, as my friend Will said, "that sounds pretty fucking great." One brief dash to the store (luckily the fancy-pants grocery store down the street from me has a cookware section, because I started this at 9 p.m., and as a former cake disliker, why the heck would I own a bundt pan?) and I came home to get started on this cake. And then went right back out because I was out of sugar. Clearly I need to pay more attention to the contents of my pantry.
One of the excuses that people give for not making cakes from scratch is the difficulty. Ummm, people, making a cake is not hard. I promise. Seriously. In the case of this cake: Melt some chocolate. Dissolve powdered espresso and cocoa in hot water. Add whiskey. Set both these things aside for the moment. Beat the butter, add sugar, add eggs, add vanilla and baking soda and the melted chocolate. Beat in the whiskey mix and the flour, alternating back and forth. It's a semi-long series of steps, but none of them is hard. At all. And you end up with a liquor soaked chocolate cake.
As you can see, I am crap at pouring cake batter into a pan, and spilled it all around the center. Didn't matter. This cake is totally awesome. Go to Orangette for the recipe, and get a copy of her book. I don't have one yet, but given the quality of her blog, I can't imagine it'd be anything but awesome.
So yeah. This is the cake that changed my opinion of cake. It's good. Really good. Moist and rich and not too sweet (plenty sweet enough, but not TOO sweet). Drizzling the top with bourbon just adds that extra note of boozy awesomeness. I bet it'd be really good with a ganache poured over the top as icing, but doesn't need it. Dusted with a light powdered sugar snowfall, it's pretty much perfect.
Now I need to find an awesome cake that isn't helped along with a huge dose of bourbon. It's got to be out there. And my birthday is coming up.
Recipe: Whiskey-Soaked Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake
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7 comments:
I am so excited about your blog!!!
I think we should have an afternoon of cooking and hanging out soon! Just don't make me any cakes...that looks damn good. :)
That looks absolutely wonderful. I love all the blog links that you have been putting on facebook. I have them bookmarked and am actually making that chorizo and garbanzo bean soup tomorrow
The Tartine cookbook has some sort of orangeish cake that doesn't have any alcohol that is just as moist and divine as yours looks.
For a slightly morbid but tasty as hell cake, here's the pound cake recipe that Nathan made for me on our first date.
Hey, I advocate carrot cake for your birthday. I love carrot cake! Also, the repetitive motion of grating fresh carrots fits with your criterion of repetitive steps. Fresh produce and sweets all in one cake.
(WillB)
Steph - Let's do it! Your schedule is way more booked than mine, so figure out when works for you and give me a call? Sometime next week, maybe?
The Babers - Man, that soup is so good, isn't it? I should revisit it here.
fbbq - I really ought to get a copy of that book. Although the croissant recipe is too fiddley, even for me.
Will - How about I make carrot cake for your birthday? I did make a carrot pie on a dare once. Like pumpkin pie, but substituting carrot puree for the pumpkin puree. It was surprisingly good.
Nice work! Glad you used Maker's for this one. I think that I'm going to try to make a vegan version of this cake :)
totally agree with you about homemade cakes vs box or store bought. but here's a thing: my girls sometimes ask me for a bakery/store bought cake for their birthdays. apparently they get *tired* of having homemade cakes or cupcakes and want a change once in awhile! who knew?
your cake looks awesome.
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