Cinco de Mayo Sweet: Tortilla Torte Recipe for Serious Eats

Have you ever found yourself wondering why, in the field of desserts inspired by Mexican food, the choco taco must always reign supreme? I mean, there is so much possibility in the genre. I know that personally, I'd be mega-thrilled about a chocolate-peanut butter quesadilla or some Cadbury Creme huevos rancheros.

But for a sweet south of the border-inspired treat that really takes the cake, why not try out a Tortilla Torte? This recipe is lightly adapted from a family cookbook recipe shared with me by Kerry Haygood of cake pop bakery Lollicakes.

Composed of tortillas stacked over chocolate cream filling and topped with a billow of fluffy white frosting, this torte visually resembles fancy stacked sponge cakes, but ultimately makes for a very different dessert experience. The tortillas take a bit of getting used to—they will remain lightly chewy even when the chocolate has had a chance to set— but the taste sensation is unlike any other dessert I've ever tried. The floury taste of the tortillas mixes quite pleasantly with the rich chocolate-sour cream filling (which is also great by the spoonful) and the complementary tangy sweetness of the sour cream frosting.

That's to say: it's nacho typical dessert.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

What a Mug: Microwave Cake in a Mug Recipe for Serious Eats

There's a certain sector of the sweet world that I think of as "Desperation Desserts." Generally dreamed up when the cookie jar is empty and there's no ice cream in the freezer, these typically single-serving concoctions are made up of whatever happens to be on hand in the kitchen.

But happily, here's a quick-fix dessert that doesn't taste like desperation: chocolate cake prepared in a mug, in the microwave. With a consistency something like a steamed pudding, this chocolate cake might not rival a French chocolate cake in sophistication, but nonetheless holds its own as an easy convenience dessert. And should you find some ice cream or whipped cream to top it with, well, all the better.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Chocolate Delirium Recipe from Rosie's Bakery

CakeSpy Note: This is a guest post from Judy Rosenberg, owner of Rosie's Bakery in Massachusetts and author of the newly-released Rosie's All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed Baking Book (love the title!!). Here goes:

In the old days before we became aware of all the allergies that people have towards gluten, we still baked a host of cakes that did not contain wheat flour and therefore can today be considered “gluten free”. Flourless chocolate cake has been a staple of many a great baker. Its origins are found in fancy European baking, especially that of France.

Most of today’s “gluten free” pastries involve substituting all kinds of alternative choices for wheat flour; this can require changes in the other ingredients due to the fact that the gluten in wheat flour has bonding qualities, and when it is not present, the texture of the cake can be greatly affected.

What is beautiful about the classic “flourless” cake is that no substitutions are required because there is no flour involved to begin with! The incorporation of beaten egg whites and/or whipped cream helps the cake to rise somewhat while baking. The outcome is a marvelously fudgy cake that really accentuates the flavor of the chocolate and the texture that is created when you blend chocolate, butter and sugar together.

I am always thrilled to be able to introduce my gluten free customers to cakes that have been enjoyed for the past 35 years by Rosie’s customers and that I know have stood the test of time!

Here’s a melt-in-your mouth, not-too-sweet, flourless chocolate cake from Rosie's All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed Baking Book that makes a welcome dessert for all chocolate lovers, including those who are gluten intolerant. I like to serve this cake with whipped cream or coffee ice cream, and occasionally I will throw some toasted chopped almonds or walnuts on top. If you don’t want to bother with the Chocolate Ganache, just dust the cake with cocoa powder and you still have a winner. After the guests have gone, I have been known to crawl into bed with a small piece that I have heated in the microwave and topped off with a little more ice cream.

Chocolate Delirium
makes 12 to 16 servings

• Butter for greasing the pan
• 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee or espresso
• 1 pound bittersweet chocolate (or a combination of 8 ounces unsweetened chocolate and 8 ounces semisweet), chopped into small pieces
• 6 large eggs, at room temperature
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy (whipping) cream
• chilled Chocolate Ganache (there's a recipe in the book, or use this one)
• Whipped Cream (page 119) or ice cream of your choice, for serving

Procedure

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 325°F. Lightly grease a 10-inch springform pan with butter. Line the bottom of the pan with a parchment circle or pan insert.
2. Melt the butter with the sugar and coffee in a large saucepan over medium-low heat.
3. Add the chopped chocolate to the butter mixture and stir. Turn the heat off, cover, and let sit until the chocolate has melted, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and stir with a whisk until smooth. Set aside.  
4. Whisk together the whole eggs and egg yolks in a small mixing bowl. Pour this mixture in a stream into the chocolate mixture while stirring vigorously with the whisk until blended.
5. Whip the cream in a small mixing bowl with an electric mixer until firm peaks form, about 40 seconds. Stir the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture until fully incorporated.  
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until the center is set but still slightly spongy in texture and a tester inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs, about 1 ½ hours.  
7. Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for several hours.  
8. Remove the side of the pan and flip the cake onto the rack. Remove the pan bottom and the paper. Place a second rack over a large piece of aluminum foil. Flip the cake right side up onto the rack.
9. Pour the Chocolate Ganache over the top of the cake and use a frosting spatula to spread it evenly over the top so that it drips down the sides. Then use the spatula to lightly spread it around the sides of the cake. When the glaze sets, carefully lift the cake off the rack with a metal spatula and place it on a cake plate.
10. Serve with Whipped Cream or the ice cream of your choice.

La Dulce Vita: Almost Flourless Chocolate Cake with Dulce de Leche Recipe for Serious Eats

Around this time of year, an unnerving amount of people make declarations that they are going to avoid dessert, all under the alarming title of "New Year's Resolution".

Personally, I'd rather resolve to eat more deliciously. And if you resolve similarly, you'll undoubtedly get a lot of pleasure from Almost Flourless Chocolate Cake with Dulce de Leche.

This recipe is largely based on Evelyn Sharpe's 1969 recipe for "French Chocolate Cake", as discovered on Amanda Hesser's now-defunct Recipe Redux column, but is made even better with the addition of dulce de leche and ice cream or whipped cream on top.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Gooey Peanut Butter Cake Recipe for Peanut Butter and Company

Gooey Butter Cake is the pride of St. Louis, MO and proof that sometimes a mistake in baking can lead to a beautiful new invention.

Now, for a long time I held the belief that “Gooey Butter Cake” was the most beautiful cake-name in the world, but now I know that it’s not true–the best one is Gooey Peanut Butter Cake.

This recipe is basically proof that a classic can sometimes get even better: adding White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter to both the crust and the filling adds a beautifully nutty note to this sweet, rich, and utterly indulgent treat.

Find the recipe I developed for Peanut Butter and Company on their website!

Sweet and Tart: Cranberry Upside-Down Cake Recipe for Serious Eats

This cake may not redefine every thought you've ever had about cranberries, but it will turn them upside down--literally.

Swapping out cranberries for the classic pineapple in this upside-down cake yields a surprisingly pleasant result: the fresh berries, while still assertively tart, are pleasingly matched by a buttery, sweet cake and a brown sugar-butter topping. The sweet-tart taste has a few advantages: first, it makes it seem vaguely healthy and therefore perfect as a breakfast cake; second, the tartness of the cranberries is sublime when paired with the sweet contrast of a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Smear Campaign: Smearcase Recipe for Serious Eats

If you ask me, a baked good had better be great to get away with an exceedingly unappetizing name like Smearcase.

And happily, it is—this little-known Baltimore specialty, introduced to me by Rachel Rappaport of Coconut & Lime, is sort of like a thinner-crusted cousin to the pride of St. Louis known as Gooey Butter Cake. A dense, cakey crust encases a big ol' smear of gooey cream cheese-based custard filling; when sliced into squares, it's sort of like cheesecake condensed into a bar cookie form.

Note: While not strictly traditional, I added a handful of lightly roasted walnuts to the top of my Smearcase, with delicious results.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

Trick or Sweet: Mellowcreme Pumpkin Shaped Cake Recipe for Serious Eats

Candy corn may be popular, come Halloween. But I, for one, think that its cousin, the Mellowcreme Pumpkin, deserves far more love and attention. Its larger surface area makes for a chewier-textured candy, and its pumpkin shape is just so cute.

And so I'm putting these pumpkins on a pedestal—literally—in a full-sized cake form tribute to the Mellowcreme Pumpkin. The look may not be exact, but I hope you'll forgive me when you taste it: made using a pumpkin cake generously coated in tinted cream cheese frosting, this is a highly delicious homage to a second-banana Halloween sweet.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!

An Extremely Moist Chocolate Beet Cake with Creme Fraiche and Poppyseeds

Recently, I received a screener copy of the film "Toast", based on the book by the same name by Nigel Slater.

And I have to do the cliche thing and say...well, the book was better than the movie. Not that it doesn't have its moments--most of them, for me, memorable visually: a perfect lemon meringue pie, montages featuring baking. Le nom. 

But the film did remind me of something important: I've been wanting to try the chocolate beet cake recipe from Slater's even bigger book, Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch. As you might imagine, there aren't many dessert recipes in this book, but there are a few. And this description was very alluring to me:

"It is true I am rarely happier than when making chocolate cake. I especially like baking those that manage to be cakelike on the outside and almost molten within. Keeping a cake's heart on the verge of oozing is down partly to timing and partly to the ingredients--ground almonds and very good-quality chocolate will help enormously. But there are other ways to moisten a cake, such as introducing grated carrots or, in this case, crushed beets."

of course, he continues, "...this is a seductive cake, deeply moist and tempting. the serving suggesting of creme fraiche is not just a nod to the sour cream so close to beets' Eastern european heart, it is an important part of the cake."

This is a compelling cake, chocolate with a something-something, and I loved the tartness of the "frosting" -- it made it seem perfectly appropriate for a healthy snack, but it didn't smack of dessert.

Chocolate Beet Cake

Ingredients

• 8 ounces beets
• 7 ounces fine dark chocolate
• 4 tablespoons hot espresso
• 3/4 plus 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• a heaping teaspoon of baking powder
• 3 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder
• 5 eggs
• scant 1 cup superfine sugar
• creme fraiche and poppyseeds, to serve

Procedure

1. Lightly butter an 8-inch springform cake pan (I used a small bundt pan, greased and sprinkled with flour); line the bottom with a round of parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Cook the beets, whole and unpeeled, in boiling unsalted water.  Depending on their size, they will be tender when pierced with the tip of a knife within thirty to forty minutes. Young ones may take slightly less. Drain them, let them cool under running water, then peel them, slice off their stem and root, and process in a blender or food processor until a coarse puree is formed.
3. Melt the chocolate, broken into small pieces, in a small bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Don't stir. 
4. When the chocolate looks almost melted, pour the hot espresso over it and stir just once. Cut the butter into small pieces--the smaller the better--and add to the melted chocolate. Push the melted butter down under the surface of the chocolate with a spoon as best you can, and let soften.
5. Sift together the dry ingredients. Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a large mixing bowl. Sir the yolks together.
6. Now, working quickly but gently, remove the bowl of chocolate from the heat and stir until the butter has melted into the chocolate. Let sit for a few minutes, then add the egg yolks. Do this quickly, mixing firmly and evenly so the eggs blend into the mixture. Fold in the beet mixture. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold in the sugar. Firmly but gently, fold the beaten egg whites and sugar into the chocolate mixture. A large metal spoon is what you want here; work in a deep, figure-eight movement but take care not to overmix. Lastly, fold in the flour and cocoa mixture.
7. Transfer to the prepared cake pan and put in the oven, decreasing the heat immediately to 325 F. Bake for 40 minutes. The rim of the cake will feel spongy; the inner part should still wobble a little when the pan is gently shaken.
8. Set the cake aside to cool. It will sink a little in the center. Loosen it around the edges with a thin icing spatula after half an hour or so. It is not a good idea to remove the cake from the pan until it is completely cooled. Serve in thick slices, with creme fraiche and poppyseeds.

Teatime Treats: Sprinkle Cakewiches Recipe for Serious Eats

Time for High Tea? More like high time to give tea sandwiches a totally sweet makeover, with these slim and dainty but devilishly decadent frosting-filled Sprinkle Cakewiches.

I got this idea from the newly-published Scanwiches by Jon Chonko, wherein all manner of sandwiches are chronicled in a sort of art-meets-sandwich anthropology sort of way. Under the Tea Sandwich listing, there is a fascinating sprinkle-and-frosting-filled variation; naturally, I knew I had to try out my own version. I decided to take it one step further into dessert territory by swapping out the crustless white bread with thin slices of poundcake--and, because why not, I used chocolate poundcake paired with pink frosting and pastel sprinkles. The whimsical nature of the sandwiches would be charming for a child's tea party, but the tastiness is appropriate for all ages.

For the full entry and recipe, visit Serious Eats!