She's a Brick House: The NYC Brownstone Front Cake

What's in a name? They say that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet--but would it be as compelling? 

Take for instance the New York City Brownstone Front Cake. Certainly that's a much more appealing and interesting name than say, "Chocolate Loaf Cake"--and certainly the name is what lured us to learn more about, and bake, this cake. 

As Maida Heatter notes above, the Brownstone Cake is not something easily defined: the name has been used to describe cakes of caramel and chocolate, served as loaves or as layer cakes (if you're interested in learning more about its history, click here). But what holds true in each version is that this is a serious, dare we say brick house, of a cake: moist, rich, and very dense. 

Using Maida's recipe as a starting point, we made our own version of the Brownstone cake, in a loaf pan. The result was an almost brownie-like cake. Because it was a large one, we let it stand as a loaf and let each eater choose their own adventure with their slice. It's an easy one to enjoy plain, iced (top picture), a la mode, or completely over the top-chocolatey (below). 

New York City Brownstone Front Cake (adapted from Maida Heatter)

• 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
  
• 1 cup boiling water
  
• 1 tsp. dry instant coffee
  
• 1 3/4 cups unsifted unbleached flour
  
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (we used Hershey's Special Dark)
  
• 1 tsp. baking soda
  
• 1/8 tsp. salt
  
• 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter 
  
• 1 3/4 firmly packed cups light brown sugar
  
• 2 large eggs
  
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  
• 1/2 cup sour cream
  
• *Optional Cakespy additions for added decadence and deliciousness:
  
• 2 heaping tablespoons dark chocolate peanut butter--this gave it a richer, deeper dark chocolate color than some other examples of the cake we've seen.
  
• 1 generous handful chocolate chips

Directions:

• Adjust a rack one-third up from the bottom of the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. You need a loaf pan with a 9-cup capacity (we didn't so we made two loaves using a smaller loaf pans). Butter the pan. (The original recipe calls for a breadcrumb mixture to line the pan but we didn't do that).
  
• Chop the chocolate into coarse pieces and place it in a small saucepan off the heat. Add the boiling water and instant coffee. Stir until the chocolate is melted. (Maida's note: the mixture is in a saucepan so that if necessary it can be placed over heat until the chocolate is melted). Stir to mix and set aside.
  
• Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
  
• In the large bowl of an electric mixer beat the butter until soft. Add the sugar and beat until well mixed. Beat in the eggs one at a time, and then beat in the vanilla. On low speed add about half of the dry ingredients and beat to mix. Beat in the sour cream and then the remaining dry ingredients. Still on low speed, gradually add the melted chocolate mixture, scraping the bowl as necessary with a rubber spatula and beating until thoroughly mixed.
  
• *At this point, figuring it would be delicious, we also stirred in a generous handful of chocolate chips, and about 2 heaping tablespoons' worth of dark chocolate peanut butter (we used Peanut Butter and Co.'s), in little chunks here and there in the batter.
  
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s). 
  
• Bake for about 1 1/2 hours or until a cake tester gently inserted in the middle comes out dry.
  
• Cool the cake in the pan for about fifteen minutes. Then cover with a rack, turn the pan and rack upside down, and remove the pan, leaving the cake upside down to cool on the rack.

Now, this is the point at which we split paths with Maida. Rather than making her suggested Brownstone Icing,  as mentioned above, we left the cake as-is and let each eater choose their own adventure; the most delicious variation was undoubtedly the over-the-top chocolatey slice, on which we slathered on a bit of leftover chocolate buttercream frosting from a recent bout of baking and topped it with Hershey's chocolate syrup; to those who might consider this a bit excessive, it really is quite good lightly iced or even plain as well.

*As an added note, those who find this cake of interest may also get some extreme enjoyment out of David Lebovitz's Devil's Food Cake recipe.

1.17.09: Baked Good of the Day: Carolina's Cornetto from Tutta Bella Pizza

Our discovery of Carolina's Cornetto was a chance encounter. Waiting at the bar until our table was ready, the barista had accidentally cracked the shell in which this dessert is served, and so gave the damaged one to us for free. Score!

This treat is apparently new on Tutta Bella's roster--it's a rework of the cannoli that used to be on their menu, according to our server. Basically, the shell has changed and the composition has been altered: it's an Italian pizzelle cookie cone filled with a blend of mascarpone, sweet ricotta cream, dried cherries, grated orange peel, pistachios & chocolate.

Once we finished dinner we also got the Tiramisu and the Cantucccci ("little stones")--a
Trio of traditional Italian cookies similar to biscotti--and both of these desserts were certainly respectable, but it was the Cornetto that really stood out to us. Not only was it a sweet (and free) surprise, but it was a perfect size (just a couple of bites) and the contrast of textures and flavors -- crunchy and creamy, slightly sour and sweet--was memorable.

Carolina's Cornetto, Tutta Bella Pizza.

1.16.09: Baked Good of the Day: Cherry Cobbler Bar from Louisa's Cafe Bakery

All I can say is, whoa. How had I never been to this place before?

Well, it's all about the location. Louisa's Cafe Bakery is on Eastlake Avenue East, and to a car-less person who doesn't enjoy any bike ride with even the slightest hint of an incline, this is kind of like no-man's land. But I had seen their cute logo while riding on the bus, and today I finally made it inside.

Louisa's is a cafe / breakfast and lunch spot, but they also have an extremely respectable bakery case, will all sorts of cookies, cinnamon rolls, mazurkas (!) and brownies and bars. Generally cherry isn't my go-to flavor, but the top crust on the cherry cobbler bar looked too good to pass up. At $3.75 it was an investment, but it weighed about the same as a hardbound copy of War & Peace, so I found it fair.

Even as a liker-rather-than-lover of cherry flavored baked goods, I recognized that this was good stuff. The bar held its shape nicely--no unbecoming ooze here. The cherries were not too sweet, but rather slightly sour, which provided a nice complexity to the flavor. But what really got me was the buttery top and bottom crust--slightly crunchy, with a touch of saltiness and a nice coating of coarse sugar on the top, it was simply wonderful. This bodes well for the rest of their baked goods--next time I'm definitely going for the cinnamon roll.

Cherry Cobbler Bar, from Louisa's Cafe Bakery.

Cake Byte: New Cakespy Magnets by iPop!

Who needs to stick to their New Year's Resolutions when they can stick these cool magnets to their fridge instead? iPop, a very cool magnet company in Seattle has just released a new line of their patented Clicks® magnets with Cakespy artwork!

The magnets come in two types of packages: 4-packs of four 1-inch magnets, and singly packaged jumbo 2-inch diameter magnets. Not only are the magnets super-strong, but topped with a clear acrylic dome, they're cool to look at too! The magnets come packaged in an attractive clamshell-closure clear acrylic box. A great gift!

The Cakespy collection consists of three four-pack Clicks sets (pictured top), which retail for $11.50, and two singly packaged "Big Clicks" (pictured directly above), which retail for $6.50.

Interested? They are available wholesale (visit ipopsales.com for more information), and at retail locations nationwide; additionally, they are available for purchase at cakespyshop.com.

1.15.09: Baked Good of the Day: Raspberry-Almond Tart from Svedala Bakery

Last week, I ventured down to the Pike Place Market with the goal of checking out new bakery Svedala Bakery. It's a small stall in the same corridor as Daily Dozen Donut Co., specializing in Swedish pastries none of us had ever even heard of, but wanted to try, such as Mandelfläta (cardamom yeast bread with almond paste), Mazarin (almond tarts) and Dröm Rulle (chocolate sponge cake rolled with vanilla buttercream). You can imagine my horror as I approached at about 9:30 in the morning and they weren't open yet. Seriously, it should be a law that all bakeries open by at least 6 in the morning--or ideally, they'd be open 24 hours.

But reading that their goods were also sold at Whole Foods, today I ventured over to the Westlake location and picked up one of their very pretty Katalan--a Mazarin with a layer of raspberry jam.

Dude, this thing was good. Starting from the bottom, you've got a delicate, buttery crust that wasn't too flaky but was deliciously crumbly and moist; a very thin layer of raspberry then gives way to a thick filling of sweet almond paste, which was all topped off with a sort of raspberry jam icing. It's not a very large pastry--maybe 3 inches in diameter--but it certainly packs a decadent and delicious punch.

Katalan from Svedala Bakery, via Whole Foods Westlake.