Saturday, June 05, 2004


baking update

the italian chocolate olive-oil cake with chocolate satin icing was so delicious, mr. right may have actually licked the plate. he couldn't keep his fingers out of the icing bowl. . .

the cake's based on the orange-flavored olive-oil cake in nancy silverton's pastries from the la brea bakery. i was actually on the way to making her russian coffee cake, but was halted at this recipe while flipping thru.

something about it just caught my attention. and then once i realized i actually had all the ingredients for it in the cupboard, no need for shopping, my fate was sealed.

but you know me: why make a cake that's not chocolate? so i simply sifted 7 tablespoons valrhona cocoa into the recipe!

and that was a good idea. the cake emerged rich, moist, very chocolate-y. i substituted vanilla for the orange in the recipe, altho' orange actually goes quite well with chocolate and would have been fine as well.

what did concern me at first -- having never made this recipe before -- was the consistency of the batter. it was thin, watery, like no cake batter i'd ever seen.

thinner than crepe batter even. but it baked up beautifully.

the icing was your standard cream, butter, cocoa, confectioner's sugar, vanilla, all cooked together in a heavy copper pot and beat until thick enough to spread. but not as thick as you know, buttercream frosting.

this icing emerged sweet, but not too sweet, and beautifully glossy. a thin layer over the entire cake was all it took!

posted by fortune | 6:01 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments