Tuesday, June 22, 2010

TWD: Dressy Chocolate Loafcake

This week's TWD recipe, Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake, got me all excited. It's pretty much the fanciest-sounding dessert I've made all month. How fancy did it sound?

  • I put on my finest petticoat and my leather kid gloves just to read the recipe.
  • I gave myself a crink in the neck practicing holding my snooty nose high in the air as I ate its Royal Dressiness.
  • I scrubbed my apartment and got the carpets steam-cleaned so the cake would have a pristine home
  • I pictured the finished product sauntering out of the kitchen looking a little something like this:


But, before any of that could happen, I had a not-so-sexy situation during the baking process, that looked a little something like this:


I'm so much of a pastry genius that I sometimes skip steps, either on purpose or because I'm too awesome to bother reading all the directions. In this case, I skimmed past the part where we were supposed to sift the dry ingredients, including the flour and the cocoa powder. I just merrily added them all to the batter unsifted. This might not always be a problem, but my cocoa powder is not powder so much as globules, so the resulting cake batter had big pockets of unincorporated cocoa. NOT DRESSY IN THE LEAST.

What to do? I definitely didn't want to toss the batter and start again--a waste of ingredients! And I didn't want to bake it as-is, because, ew. So I settled for vigorously smooshing the batter through a strainer and stirring it all really well before baking. Never done that one before! It seemed to get rid of the cocoa clumps, but it took about five million times longer than just straining the dry ingredients on their own, so I can't say I really recommend this method.


The cake itself is a chocolate sour cream cake, layered with raspberry jam and finished with chocolate sour cream frosting, one of my very favorites. It really should be finished with fresh raspberries on top, but the Raspberry Fairy hadn't left me any of those in the fridge, so I had a make-it-work moment and used strawberries instead.

I loved the combination of chocolate cake, raspberry jam, and chocolate sour cream frosting. The sweet, tart, chocolately flavors were heavenly together. I didn't love that my cake was a little dry--maybe it was the smooshing and straining, maybe it spent a few extra minutes in the oven. Whatever it was, it made me avoid the edges and just eat the moist innards near the jam. Which is kind of a shame, but if it hadn't had this deficiency I would have eaten a lot more of this cake, which would have been a shame in a different way.

What did you guys think? Dressy Chocolate Loafcake & I are both curious.

14 comments:

  1. What a great post. The hat and the tie are too much.

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  2. What fabulous looking frosting! And the tie and hat are adorable. Talk about fancy, I feel like dressing up now just to have a bite of it! Great job.

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  3. Lovely post! Nice to see such a classy cake.

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  4. i can't believe you strained your batter! that is hilarious! my cake was super moist so maybe it was from extra time. regardless, this flavor combo was excellent!

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  5. "I'm putting on my top hat,
    tying up my white tie, brushing off my tails."

    Girl, you are too funny!!! I didn't sift mine, but it turned out fine. When I first saw the pic I was wondering if I had done something wrong. Where did it say, strain batter???

    Looks delicious. I used strawberry jam. Chocolate and strawberry - tasty combo.

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  6. That's definitely the dressiest cake I've seen! I thought the cake was quite moist and delicious, but I certainly didn't strain my batter!

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  7. Anonymous7:16 PM

    Ha, the dressed-up cake is cute! My dad thought this was too dry too, but I somehow didn't notice that. Maybe because I wolfed it down!

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  8. Wow you added a step. I hate when that happens but you are so brave to share your mishap and funny too. Love the artwork and the dressed up cake! Very cute. Thanks for baking along with me and sharing your story.
    AmyRuth

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  9. Nice! My cake is plain jane compared to yours but I got a rad bday gift!

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  10. Anonymous11:57 AM

    What pain we must go through sometimes for sweet rewards!! hahah...it looks like it was worth it though

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  11. That frosting looks so shiny and delicious. I just made a gananche, but will have to try that sour cream one sometime! Cheerio!

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  12. I can't get over the fact that you strained batter!!! Love the frosting, and it sure is dressed up :)

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  13. I could never make nice swirls on my cakes. Your swirls look so good.

    I use a stick blender to remove clumps, if they ever happened.

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