Every cook needs a repertory of tried and true recipes that she or he can fall back on. Everyone should also be able to make a birthday cake so that your loved ones don't have to eat a Kroger crisco sugar bomb with lurid icing and plastic figures on it. To that end, I am going to share a few chocolate recipes for Valentine's Day that have great provenance, whether it be the New York Times, my mother, or Katherine Hepburn.
First off, Amanda Hesser's Chocolate Dump-it Cake, so-named because it is actually mixed in a saucepan. Hesser is a food writer for the New York Times and first featured this recipe of her mother's back in 2002. It was recently refeatured in a Personal Best column in the NYT Sunday Magazine. This cake is everything it purports to be and more. It is moist, easy, chocolately without being too sweet and a one-pan wonder to make. I have pretty much given up on any other chocolate cake recipe out there.
It also features one of the great icing recipes ever devised. The first time I read the recipe and saw the frosting was made from chocolate chips and sour cream I laughed. But it works! It makes a really shiny light frosting that's easy to slather on and then it hardens into a fudge-like consistency. The sour cream cuts the sweetness of the chocolate and gives the cake another layer of depth tastewise. I usually bake it in a bundt pan (the ubiquitous tractor tire pan I bought for .20 years ago), slice it down the middle, add a layer of raspberry jam and fill the center with fresh raspberries. Perfection!
Chocolate Dump-It Cake (Adapted from Judith Hesser)
2 cups sugar
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups Nestlé's semisweet-chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups sour cream, at room temperature.
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and place a baking sheet on the lowest rack to catch any drips as the cake bakes on the middle rack. In a 2- to 3-quart pot, mix together the sugar, unsweetened chocolate, butter and 1 cup of water. Place over medium heat and stir occasionally until all of the ingredients are melted and blended. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
2. Meanwhile, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, stir together the milk and vinegar. Grease and flour a 9-inch tube pan.
3. When the chocolate in the pot has cooled a bit, whisk in the milk mixture and eggs. In several additions, and without overmixing, whisk in the dry ingredients. When the mixture is smooth, add the vanilla and whisk once or twice to blend. Pour the batter into the tube pan and bake on the middle rack until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool on a rack. (This can be tricky -- if someone is around to help, enlist him.) Let cool completely.
4. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler, then let cool to room temperature. Stir in the sour cream, 1/4 cup at a time, until the mixture is smooth.
5. When the cake is cool, you may frost it as is or cut it in half so that you have 2 layers. There will be extra icing whether you have 1 or 2 layers. My mother always uses it to make flowers on top. She makes a small rosette, or button, then uses toasted slices of almond as the petals, pushing them in around the base of the rosette.
Yield: 10 servings.
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