Cake and Commerce

How to make Grandma's Chocolate Cake

By the time Mich'l and I worked together in the pastry shop at a hotel in Atlanta, I already knew that I was going to leave to cook on the restaurant's hot line. After nearly three years of non-stop pastry, sometimes 18 hours a day, I was ready for a change. And just as I was getting ready to go, Mich'l showed up. Armed to the teeth with legendary experiences (working for and with the stars of the pastry world) and heart-breakingly wonderful recipes (collected over more than a decade as she moved through our hotel's properties around the country), Mich'l was a welcome dose of frenzy -and optimism - in our otherwise dreary shop. Unlike other newcomers to the shop, she wasn't jockeying for a title or ownership of our product. That role belonged to our executive pastry chef who preferred autocratic control and traditionalism over productivity and happiness. Newcomers either fell in with him - and, by default, the rest of us - or grew quickly dissatisfied and found better jobs at other hotels or country clubs. No one left the shop to work in the benefits-free zone of restaurants.  Mich'l was neither cowed by his barking or put off by our established routines and recipes. With a manner that was a cross between doting mother and Betty Boop, with a touch of SoCal rebel thrown in for seasoning, she was able to convince our exec to change up the recipes that were, until that moment, the sacred cows of our shop.

My ice cream recipes? Out the door. Replaced by ones given to her by Sebastian Canonne (who everyone claims as an influence, but most have to pay to work with these days. Not M'chl). Our cake? She had better recipes from L.A.

Mich'l had the credibility the rest of us - mostly rejects from restaurant kitchens and country clubs - lacked. And she seemed to know everyone in the industry.

One of the biggest revelations for me was a recipe she brought to the property from her last job. It is a glorious, sweet-but-not-too-sweet version of a devil's food chocolate cake with wonderful sour notes in the icing that offset the usual heaviness of similar cakes. I'm not sure who originated the recipe, but I've passed it on to everyone I know because it is not only easy but a consistent crowd-pleaser. I've used it as the basis for wedding cakes, I've served it at birthdays. My sister who lives in Berlin bakes it weekly for parties (and it is great for cupcakes, too). Friends, Grandma's Chocolate Cake is your ticket to love, respect, and a fulfilled life full of flowers, birds, and magic. Or maybe it is just a great cake.

I love this cake. The photo above shows how this cake may come out if you get a little sloppy with the execution. Not my best work.

The recipe is as reliable as a cake recipe can be, and the results are always great. Just make sure to mix for as long as the recipe indicates. Yes, a seven-minute mix followed by a four minute mix is odd, but it works. Trust me.

The Ingredients, more or less, messy:

Grandma’s Chocolate Cake

Prep Time: Cake: 15 minutes prep/40 minutes bake

                                                Frosting: 2 hours (start to finish)

Ingredients

Cake:

1 cup water

½ cup cocoa

1 cup buttermilk (or kefir)

¾ cup vegetable oil

2 each eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cup flour

2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

Frosting:

½ pound butter (two sticks)

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pound confectioner’s sugar

8 ounce sour cream

1 pinch of salt

Procedure:

1)     Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2)     Boil water, add cocoa. Stir until smooth and thick, about 1 minute. Allow to cool.

3)     Combine buttermilk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract.

4)     Mix together flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda in large bowl.  Add buttermilk mixture and mix together (using a paddle attachment) at medium speed for 7 minutes. Add COOLED cocoa mixture and mix for additional 4 minutes. 

5)     Pour into prepared cake pan and bake in center of the oven for 30-40 minutes. Check doneness with toothpick. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely

Frosting:

1)     Melt butter and chocolates together in a double boiler (or microwave). Allow to cool for 15 minutes.

2)     Add in confectioner’s sugar and mix until smooth with no lumps.

3)     Add sour cream and vanilla and salt. Allow to cool completely before using.

For those of you who are more visual, here are a few photos that may (or may not) help you when it is time for you to turn Grandma's Chocolate Cake into your own (I have yet to work out the gluten-free version, which I'll get to soon).

The first step - combine cocoa and water and boil. The cocoa, after it boils, will thicken significantly. Do not boil more than necessary to thicken:

It will look like pudding, but don't be tempted to eat it. Just let it cool.

In your Kitchenaid (or similar stand-up mixer), start the seven minutes of mix. Since it takes a while for the cocoa to cool, there's no need to work simultaneously with the cocoa and the mixer. You can do this by hand if you have a lot of stamina or if lack of equipment drives you to it:

 

After seven minutes, add the cooled cocoa mixture and run the mixer at medium speed for an additional four minutes. Don't forget to scrape down the bowl, as you'll notice I've forgotten to do:

It will look like this after four minutes - OK, I admit, not a helpful photo (except for the color of the batter) but I like the way my mixer looks:

You'll then pour the batter into prepared (either sprayed, parchment lined, or butter-and-floured) pans of your choosing. Lately I've been choosing smaller pans (8") because it tends to bake better. I have also been using the convection setting for a more even bake. If you do go with convection, remember to rotate your pans in the oven or you will get lopsided, inconsistent rise!

While the cakes are baking, make the icing.

Add your melted butter and chocolate to the confectioner's sugar that is already in the bowl of the mixer. Mix on medium speed until there are no lumps.

Add your sour cream - remember to scrape down to avoid lumps:

Mix, but DO NOT OVERMIX! The key is to just combine the sour cream and the chocolate mixture without adding too much air, which will make the icing hard to spread without visible air bubbles:

Do you see the lumps, above? I do. Gah! The icing will get lighter in color, but the lighter it is, the more air has been incorporated. Try to keep the mixer on low speed.

It will look like this:

That's slightly too light. I had to stir it up a bit to get some of the air out. I'm not always great at following my own instructions.

The cakes, when done, should be depanned and allowed to cool. I was out of parchment so I used aluminum foil and threw a little sugar down:

 

Slice them to size - cut off bulging tops etc. so that your cake will sit flat (and note the tunneling - I've never made this recipe and had an even crumb):

And, once assembled, it may look like this --- or not!

 

Enjoy! 

Cafe Ataco - Processor of green coffee Beans in El Salvador

Cafe Ataco is a pretty typical wet processor of green beans. Privately owned, Ataco processes coffee cherries into dried green coffee beans for many local Fincas, where the coffee is actually grown and picked.

Here are what coffee cherries look like (there are two 'beans' per cherry in this variety of arabica)

We visited at the end of the season, so there was only a small amount of processing going on. Mostly drying. The trucks dropping off their loads of cherries were long gone.

So use your imagination. I'm not going to describe the process (mainly because I can't remember all of the steps and which photo goes with which step and it is done so very well here.) but rather I'm just going to share some photos from our visit. In the next entry down, I include photos of all the equipment - antique, worn, and rather typical, as one of my colleagues explained.

Once the truck carrying in the cherries has been weighed, the cherries are dropped into a bin and flushed with water - water that carries them through the process of pulping (removing the cherry pulp). The bins are made of concrete. Each bin has a number, so the beans from each finca can be kept separate throughout the process. Ataco processes both organic and conventionally farmed beans.

Here the pulped beans are set out to dry for a few weeks. Rain would damage the drying beans, so this is done during the dry season.

The dark spots are from beans that were not fully pulped. These will be sorted and discarded.

Every drying lot has a sign beside it to show where it is from, lot number, quality:

After a little more drying and sorting, the beans end up on a long conveyor belt. Women sort out the 'bad' beans - quakers, broken beans, etc. According to Ataca, different countries (and buyers) have different standards for defects. One Italian company apparently accepts up to 6% defective beans. An American company only accepts 1%. When they sort the beans, they keep this in mind.

The beans are then bagged and put into storage. Buyers will sample from the sacks. And decide whether or not to purchase the lot.

After our tour of the facility, we are served coffee roasted at Ataco. It is brewed in the traditional way:

It is the first truly delicious cup of coffee I have during my visit. Apparently the best beans are exported. Most of the stuff consumed in El Salvador is what the Europeans and Americans don't want.

We then go to see ponies that are kept on the property. One of them bites me. Stay away from the one on the left! Blood pony!

The coconut sorbetto vendor, San Salvador

It was a hot afternoon and Ethan spotted the vendor selling coconut sorbetto, a dairy free coconut treat made with coconut milk. Two scoops, raspberry honey, in a small hand-made red cone. Heaven.

Pineapple-filled cookies in El Salvador

You have to try these! They are incredible...so tender and delicious!

Pasticceria Natalina - real Sicilian pastry in Chicago

I took these photos almost a year ago - but kept waiting to go back to take better pictures. I've been back a few more times, but none of the pictures have been quite right. Anyway....

Nick and Natalie own Pasticceria Natalina, a small bakery they opened up in the Andersenville neighborhood in late 2006 when they were 24 or 25. Natalie is self-taught...she learned everything from her Sicilian aunties and grandmother.

As I write this, she's coming home from an eating trip to Sicily. I really wanted to tag along with her...it would have been incredible.

They make their own cannolis...and fill them with a sheeps milk ricotta from Sicily. When they can't get it, they don't offer cannoli.

For the first year, Nick and Natalie worked non-stop with very little help. Natalie takes a moment to drink an espresso to try and stay awake:

Nick quit his job to join Natalie full time in the kitchen. After opening the shop, they moved out of their condo and into a small studio apartment - since they were spending most of their time at the shop, there was no need to keep a large place.

Nick finishes up some loaf cakes:

The pastries are seasonal. Nick and Natalie try to reflect seasonal availability of fruit and produce in their offerings. Here's some of what they had in their case last spring:

The lemon tiralli are my favorite cookies in Chicago.

Designer Donuts, the new cupcake?

Is it too soon for donuts? (or, is it doughnuts?)

After Krispy Kreme decimated the country with its light, airy donuts that inflamed passions with resulting donut burnout, is it too soon for donuts to stage a comeback?

On the west coast, artisan & "designer" donuts are popping up at Farmer's Markets (Staccato Gelato's donuts in Portland are great) and at shops like Fritelli's in Los Angeles. Is there room in other US cities for similar stands and shops?

Oh yeah!

I love the copy from the Fritelli's web page:

"Alison Winston, owner and founder of Frittelli's, has created a unique line of designer doughnuts for this Beverly Hills hotspot. Frittelli's choreographs textures, shapes, colors, and sizes to provide the "perfect doughnut." "

Ah...a Fritelli donut...like a dance, but edible. I wonder, though: do "designer" donuts have tons of calories and fat? Does it matter?

Yesterday, Betty Turbo and I tried our hands at making "artisan" donuts. I started out the morning by whipping up a few jams for filling - an apple pear and a strawberry apple (I used McIntosh for pectin). I pulled out The Joy of Cooking, which, of my 30 or so sweet goods cookbooks, is the only one to have multiple recipes. I made up about 4 recipes - a yeasted sweet potato that tasted terrible and didn't rise, two baking soda recipes that I modified with ingredient changes (including making one gluten-free), and an Alton Brown yeasted dough recipe that was unnecessarily complex so I simplified it. I figure that if he and I went to culinary school together (we did), I am certainly qualified to adjust one of his recipes that contains way too many steps (it did).

The Joy of Cooking basic dough recipe - made with 4 teaspoons of baking powder - was perhaps the most successful. Replacing vegetable shortening with butter made a huge difference in flavor. I found that organic pastry flour, made with whole grains, made lousy donuts. I did replace some of the granulated sugar in one of the recipes with honey, which still tasted great. I used yogurt in any recipe that called for buttermilk or sour cream - again, it tasted great.

Of course I forgot to take pictures of the process. This morning I pulled out the camera and finally took some pictures - a jelly donut, above, and a plain donut with lemon glaze, below. I'm going to bring these to a party. Before I do so, I'm going to dust them again with confectioner's sugar. Mmmmmm. And come winter, I'll try these again. The humidity took a toll on the sugar, dissolving it quickly.

The totally gluten free cake

My friend Betty Turbo gave me this very thoughtful gift...which she made herself. If you ask nicely, maybe she will make one for you too. Sometimes she has them on her Etsy site.

Buying macaroons at Miette, San Francisco

Who knew that blue jimmies were vegan?

Seen at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, OR:

Pix Patisserie, Portland

Ahhh, macaroons. I love them. And Pix has some wacky ones!

At the main location, there's a restauant...and you can have Chimay with your clafoutis. Or Paris Brest. Or Marjolaine.

There's a lot to look at, arranged in a rather interesting way

I'm particularly fascinated and repulsed by the cheese n chocolate combo: