Chocolate-It's What's for Dinner

Steamed cake you say? Well that sounds um well not really that good huh? Well guess what it was pretty darn moist and pretty darn good. Now I wouldn't go saying WOW this is a great cake to make in the summer. I don't have to put my oven on because you are generating steam on the top of the stove to cook it.  It is pretty easy to make and it is pretty amazing that you can steam a cake. Steamed Chocolate Cake (Adapted from Milk Street ) 1c flour 1/3 c cocoa 1 t baking soda 1/2 t salt 1 c light brown sugar 2 eggs 1/2 c water 1t instant espresso powder 1/2 c sour cream 6 T butter, melted 1 1/2 t vanilla Cut a length of foil (about 18") and gently scrunch it together. Form it into a circle and place it in the bottom of a Dutch oven. Add enough water to reach about 3/4 of the way up the foil. Grease a 9" round pan and line the bottom of the with a round of parchment. Make sure it fits in your Dutch oven.  Also make sure that the lid will fit tightly when...

Now some might say that fallen chocolate cake sounds like a souffle gone terribly wrong, but they would be terribly wrong. Fallen chocolate cake is a nice fudgey cake gone terribly right. Fallen Chocolate Cake (Adapted from BonAppetit) 1/2 c butter, cut into 1" pieces 3/4 sugar, divided (plus 2T for topping and additional for pan) 10 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped 2T oil 6 large eggs (4 of which are separated) 2T cocoa 1 t vanilla 1t salt Topping 1 c heavy cream 1/2 c mascarpone 3T confectioner's sugar Pomegranate seeds (optional) Lightly butter a springform pan and dust with sugar.  Tap out excess and set aside. Combine chocolate, oil, and butter in a heatproof bowl. Blast in 15 second increments in microwave until melted (or heat slowly over double-boiler). Set aside. Separate 4 of the eggs. In a bowl take the 4 yolks, cocoa, vanilla, salt, 1/4 c sugar, and the 2 remaining eggs and whisk until smooth. Gradually whisk in the cho...

Now if you are going to name your cake this, you had better make sure all you i's are dotted and your t's are crossed (well maybe not the i's since there are none in the title). I'm not sure that I would call this the world's best. It was tasty but I would have liked if the cake was a tad bit moister. The recipe said that the chocolate ganache was optional. In my mind that excludes you right away from being the world's best. Come on when is chocolate ganache optional?? It also suggested espresso cinnamon mascarpone cream. That would have been nice but I didn't have any mascarpone so I went without the cream. I don't think that would have changed my opinion anyway. World's Best Chocolate Cake ( NY Times ) I followed the recipe straight up (shocking I know!) I did not have self-rising flour so I used the 1 3/4 c +1T flour and 2 3/4 t baking powder). I don't think that made the cake any drier because it looks exactly like the picture on the web...

We were invited to our neighbors for a barbecue and I was charged with dessert. No big deal but several of the members are a foodie crowd. Well I was all set to make this delicious looking crepe cake. What is a crepe cake you ask - it's layers of crepes and in between is a layer of chocolate cream and creme de menthe cream - well in this instance anyway. Sounds great huh? Well it was not so great. I mixed up the creams to have the flavors blend and I set about making the crepes.  I've made crepes before but not for a while. These were a total crepe-tastrophe. They just stuck to the pan and I couldn't flip them. Now I had these two creams sitting in the refrigerator, the bowls chilling in the freezer and nothing to do with them. I decided to just go with two simple chocolate layer cakes with chocolate cream on the inside and the cream de menthe on the outside. Well talk about making lemonade from lemons - this was totally that and more! Not a bad rescue Chocolate Crem...