The (purportedly) six-minute cake

I was recently charged with baking some sort of birthday treat for one of my esteemed mentors in the lab. The recent Beet Cake planted the seeds of the Ultimate root cake in my mind, and I was tempted to tinker with my favorite carrot cake recipe to turn out this dreamed-of baking project, but... time was short. As we're almost out of beet season, this might become a project for next winter.

Pushing carrots, beets, and parsnips from my mind, I turned to the second best thing: chocolate. It was a glorious day, and there were many things to do besides bake. This recipe for "Six-Minute Chocolate Cake" is tucked away in the last chapter of the Moosewood Book of Desserts. A chapter, it should be noted, entitled "Moosewood Classics." How could I go wrong? Chocolate...coffee...six minutes...a classic.

I got out the ingredients and set the timer. Maybe I'm slow at scooping and leveling cocoa powder. It took me something closer to 12-15 minutes by the time I was ready to put this all into the oven. Still, they're worth it for the ease of preparation and the fact that the ingredients are inexpensive pantry staples (for me). It's a good recipe. I doubled it for the purposes of sharing with the masses and keeping a few for myself.

Once the cupcakes were baked and cooled there came the issue of topping them. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of frosting. Maybe that's sacrilegious when a birthday and cake are both involved. Maybe I've grown out of the frosting-phase of my life.

Being the person in charge of the cupcakes, and knowing I couldn't bring them in with just powdered sugar topping without getting a few desultory looks, I opted for a chocolate ganache topping. As the birthday girl (a self-proclaimed fan of frosting) put it upon sampling, "this topping elevates the birthday cupcake to an adult treat." A chocolate glaze would also work well, and is what the book suggests you use. This allows you to keep the cake vegan, or top the cake in the case that you don't have heavy cream kicking around the back of your fridge.

The Cake
(Makes either 12 cupcakes, a 9-in round cake, or an 8-in square cake)

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Sift together:
180 g (1.5 c)
1/3 c. unsweetened non-dutch processed cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c. sugar

Separately, mix together:
1/2 c. veggie oil
1 c. cold coffee (or water)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients and mix the batter with a whisk. Not too much, just get things moist. When the batter is smooth, add

2 Tbs cider vinegar (this reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise)

and stir quickly. There will be milk chocolate-colored swirls in the dark batter as the vinegar reacts with the baking soda (this is fun to see.) Stir it just until the vinegar is evenly distributed.

Bake 20 min (cupcakes), or 25-30 (cakes), then cool.

The Ganache

3/4 c. heavy cream
4.5 oz bittersweet chocolate
pinch salt
optional: 1 tsp vanilla, or 1 tsp hazelnut-flavored liqueur...

This is quick and easy, too- pour the cream into a small saucepan. Bring that to a simmer on the stoveop, then toss in the chopped up chocolate. I stirred it for a minute or so on the heat, then took it off the heat and just kept stirring until the chocolate was all melted. I seasoned it with salt at the very end.

Let it sit on the counter for a while- at least an hour- it will harden up as it cools. I spread it on the cupcakes while it was still the consistency of a glaze, so it brushed on easily and solidified nicely. Put the finished products into the fridge to harden, then cover them up for longer-term storage in there. As you can see, half the cupcakes were garnished with coconut flakes, half I left unadulterated. You'll have enough ganache left over for making a few cups of hot chocolate or mochas, or rolling out a few truffles, or for snacking straight from the fridge... or you could just try making less. Next time I have leftover ganache, I'm going to mix it with peanut butter and use it as a decadent topping for toasts in the morning, I think. That wouldn't suck.

I came back from a noontime swim at the pool to find both boxes of cupcakes empty. So my suspicion that ganache-topped chocolate coffee-infused cupcakes might appeal to adults seems... confirmed?

Chocolate Bobka.

Chocolate Bobka... so good, it's no wonder it was the topic of discussion in one Seinfeld episode:

JERRY: That was our Bobka.

ELAINE: You can't beat a Bobka.

JERRY: We should have had that Bobka.

ELAINE: They're going to be heroes.

JERRY: What are we going to do now. If we can't get the Bobka the whole thing's useless.

This recipe for bobka is so good, you will never suffer the fate of Jerry and Elaine, who had their chocolate bobka scooped up by the woman in line in front of them.

It's not that hard to make, especially once you become adept at working with yeast. My initial inspiration was from the December 2006 gourmet magazine, I've futzed with the recipe. This works great every time, and it's definitely worth the effort. It's also pretty easy to fit bread making into a busy schedule. I tinker with the recipe and timing a lot, but here's one way to get started:

The night before, make a sponge by mixing together 200 g flour, 1/4 tsp yeast, 3/4 tsp salt, 250g cold milk. Let that sit on your counter overnight, covered.

The next morning, whisk 1/2 c. sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla into the sponge. In a separate bowl, mix together 300 g flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 tsp yeast. Knead that into the wet sponge mixture. Let the dough rest for about 5 min, then knead in about 1 stick butter. Half should be kneaded in so that the dough is smooth. The other half, break up with your fingers and knead it in such that it is well-distributed as small pieces, but there should still be small pockets of butter.

Return the dough to the bowl, cover, let rise 1 hr. After 1 hr, fold dough, return to bowl. Let rise about 1-1.5 hr more, until it's about doubled in size.

Divide the dough in half and roll it out into a rectangle, about 10x18". Spread 1.5T softened butter over the dough, leaving a 1.5" border on all sides. Distribute 4 oz good-quality chopped bittersweet chocolate over the butter. Sprinkle 2T sugar over this. Make an egg wash by mixing an egg white with about 1T water, use a pastry brush to brush some of the egg wash on the 1.5" border.

Roll the dough up like an 18" cigar. Bring the ends together so that you have a circle with an 18" circumference. Seal the ends by overlapping them and banging them with your fist. Twist the circle into a figure 8, then give it one more twist and put it into a greased 1-lb loaf tin.

At this point, you have a few options: You can let it rise until the dough comes up to the top of the bread pan, then bake it. You can put it in the fridge, covered w/ plastic wrap, overnight... then bring to RT for 2-3 hr and bake it. OR, my favorite, put it into the fridge, covered with plastic wrap until you go to bed. Then take it out and put it in a box outside, or in a shed if you've got one (the nights here are about 45-50F). Let it rise slowly at this cooler temp. In the morning, pop it straight into the preheated oven.

Before you bake it: for a glossy finish to the bread, save the yolk from that egg wash and mix it with 1T milk. Brush that gently over the surface right before you put it into the oven.

Bake it at 350F for 35-40 min, or until it's 190F inside the bread. If it browns too early, put foil over the top and finish baking. Let the loaves rest in their tins for at least 30 min before removing them to fully cool.

You can always make extra and share...



My friend, Valentina, and I had fun time photographing the bread. The top 2 pics are her works of art- thanks Vale! You captured the bread's jauntiness.