Tag Archives: Chocolate

Trumps’ Chocolate Tea Cake: A Scissor-Worthy Recipe

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

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Be warned: There is one danger to making this cake. It is impossible to walk away without licking every batter-covered surface.

Making this cake is dangerous. It is impossible to walk away without licking every batter-covered surface. You have been warned.

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you know I’m something of a compulsive recipe-clipper. This particular scissor-worthy recipe entered my baking rotation sometime in the 1980s, when I served on a social committee that was planning an English tea-themed event. I remember the recipe came from a magazine, but cannot recall whether it was Gourmet, Food & Wine, or Bon Appétit. If a recipe I’d clipped was a hit, I’d bestow it with my highest honor, typing or writing it out on an index card. In this case, however, I neglected to note the source. Too bad. But it’s funny; I can still see an image of The Donald and Ivana (for they were still married then) in a photograph accompanying the recipe.* (I tend to have a selectively eidetic memory.) The Trumps owned the Plaza Hotel at the time, and this cake was on the menu there. Not that I ever had a chance to enjoy it in those hallowed halls myself. But if the Midlife Second Wife couldn’t go to the Plaza, then the Plaza surely can go to the Midlife Second Wife. And it does, each time I bake this sumptuous cake.

Don't be alarmed; this is really how the cake is supposed to look after you remove it from the oven.

Don’t be alarmed; this really is how the cake is supposed to look after you remove it from the oven.

TRUMPS’ CHOCOLATE TEA CAKE

Six-ounces semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
One stick unsalted butter, softened
Two-thirds cup sugar
Three eggs
One-half cup cake flour, sifted
Raspberry or strawberry jam

Butter and flour a nine-inch cake pan and line the bottom with waxed or parchment paper; set aside. Whisk the chocolate and butter together in a bowl. Add the sugar, then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Blend in the flour until just mixed. Pour into the prepared pan and bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 20-25 minutes. (At 25 minutes I insert a wooden skewer into the center of the cake; if it’s clear when I pull it out the cake is done. It really depends on each individual oven.)

The cake will rise slightly, then sink in the center. Cool cake in the pan, then invert onto a serving plate and peel off the parchment paper. Cake will be dense and moist. Chill for one hour and spread the top with fine quality raspberry or strawberry jam.

This cake freezes beautifully, if carefully wrapped. I should point out that I always make two cakes at a time, doubling the ingredients. This way, I always have a delicious dessert on hand for unexpected company, or the start of a stash for the holidays.

To freeze, I wrap the completely cooled cake in waxed paper, then I wrap it in foil, and then I place it, gently, in a plastic bag.

To freeze, I wrap the completely cooled cake in waxed paper, then I wrap it in foil, and then I place it, gently, in a plastic Ziploc bag.

I know that you’re eager to see a picture of the finished cake, so here it is!

Voilà! I frosted this with strawberry jam and garnished it accordingly.

Voilà! I frosted this with strawberry jam and garnished it accordingly.

*Ivana, you might want to think about subscribing to my blog…

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

02 Tuesday Jul 2013

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CompletedCakecrp

Remember that old commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups? Two people—one eating chocolate, the other eating peanut butter—bump into each other. The chocolate gets knocked into the peanut butter, yielding a joyous discovery: the marriage of two perfect flavors. Well, whoever it was who decided that a marriage of chocolate to zucchini would be a wondrous thing had an equally excellent idea (although the creative soul probably didn’t earn a similar windfall).

It’s not that zucchini has much flavor to add to a chocolate cake. No, its contribution derives from the moistness it imparts, along with an intriguing hint of texture. I’m sure there are health benefits, too. At least, that’s how I justify a second helping. I’ve had this recipe in my collection since the 1970s. I know because it’s typed (TYPED!) on an index card yellowed with age and splattered with a dash of calcified chocolate batter. I most likely clipped the original recipe from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

I share this with you now because summer is the perfect time to bake this cake, when farmers’ markets are brimming with fresh zucchini.  Enjoy!

ChocZukeCakemiseenplacecrp1Chocolate Zucchini Cake

—Serves 12

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter (one stick)
1/2 cup canola oil
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
4 tablespoons cocoa*
3 zucchini, approximately six-inches long
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate pieces*

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the sugars, butter, and oil.

Add the eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk, and stir well to mix. Sift together all the dry ingredients and then sift them into the mixing bowl. Grate the zucchini, skin and all, into the bowl and stir until blended.

GratedZucchiniPour into a greased and floured 13- x 9-inch pan. Sprinkle the top with chocolate pieces and bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for 45 minutes or until cake tests done. Serve the cake plain, or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

* My baking chocolate of choice is Ghirardelli Chocolate.

Black-Bottom Cupcakes: A Scissor-Worthy Recipe

05 Thursday Jul 2012

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I actually remember the first time I ever made these cupcakes. It was the summer of 1976, and I was a lithe young thing who never gave a second thought to such concepts as carbohydrates, fat grams, or weight gain. Ah, the ignorance of youth!

I’m guessing at the recipe’s provenance, but it could have been clipped from the (Cleveland, Ohio) Plain Dealer. A recipe prowler even at such a tender age, I was organized enough to type my finds on 5×7 index cards, but not so organized as to include their origins for future attribution. My coinage of the term “scissor-worthy” was decades away. And, since the Internet as we know it was not yet conceived, it would have come as a surprise to me that someday I would be able to share this recipe’s glories with untold readers on something called a blog. Ah, the joys of food-time travel!

For some inexplicable reason, I craved these cupcakes yesterday, and so they became part of our 4th of July menu, which was shared at the home of friends. But you don’t need a national holiday to enjoy their deep, dark, chocolate-y goodness, or the richness of their moist texture. Check your pantry to make sure you have these ingredients on hand, because I promise you: you want to make these. And soon. Enjoy!

Black-Bottom Cupcakes

1 8-ounce package of cream cheese, softened
2 and 1/3 cups sugar, divided
1 and 1/8 teaspoons salt, divided
1 6-ounce package of semisweet chocolate pieces (I prefer Ghirardelli’s)
3 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa (I used Penzey’s Dutch-processed cocoa)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups water
1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar, egg, and 1/8 teaspoon salt in a small mixing bowl. Beat well. Add chocolate pieces and set aside.

Combine flour, cocoa, 2 cups sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and soda. Add water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. (Batter will be very thin.)

Place muffin liners in muffin pan. Fill each 2/3 full of batter, then drop a teaspoon of cream cheese mixture in the center. Bake at 350-degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Cool on rack. Yields two to two and one-half dozen small cupcakes or one dozen large cupcakes. The recipe says that these freeze well when wrapped in aluminum foil, but for some reason, I’ve never had the chance to freeze them. I wonder why?

Republican Fudge Even a Democrat Could Love!

27 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Food for Thought, Indulgences

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Having already established my feelings about chocolate in this venue, I won’t restate them other than to add an important point I neglected to make at the time: I am a bipartisan chocolate lover. When it comes to chocolate, I suffer no compunctions about crossing the aisle. Indeed, I so appreciate the essential characteristics of milk as well as dark chocolate, that I sometimes combine both in a baking recipe. Perhaps it’s best not to tell anyone. Especially Fox News.

Today’s recipe is vintage—so old that I suspect it’s in the public domain. I saved this recipe for “Mamie Eisenhower’s Million Dollar Fudge” ages ago, and I have the yellowing newspaper clipping to prove it. (I hope that the estate of Mamie Eisenhower does not sue me for copyright infringement. If they do, I’ll offer to settle the case by shipping the Eisenhower descendents batches of their matriarch’s incredibly decadent fudge.) Christmas might be over, but you can still sneak this in before your New Year’s resolution has you abstaining from sweets. You’re welcome.

Mamie Eisenhower’s Million Dollar Fudge

—Makes about 2 pounds

4 and 1/2 cups sugar
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons butter
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk
1 12-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate chips (My preference is for Ghirardelli‘s)
3 4-ounce packages German sweet chocolate (I used Baker’s brand)
2 7-ounce jars marshmallow cream
2 cups chopped nuts (I had pecans in the freezer so that’s what I used for this recipe)

Boil the sugar, salt, butter and milk in a large, heavy saucepan for 6 minutes.

Put the chocolate chips, German chocolate, marshmallow cream and nuts in a large bowl (I used the bowl of my KitchenAid mixer.) Very carefully, pour the boiling syrup on top and beat until chocolate is completely melted. Pour into a greased 9-by 13-inch pan. Let stand a few hours before cutting. Store in an airtight tin. (I find that the fudge keeps best if I leave it in the pan—covered with foil and kept in the refrigerator—and simply cut into squares what I need for serving or gifting.) Even if I do store it in a tin, it’s best to keep this refrigerated.

Sweet Tweets: Of Chocolate and Twitter

05 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by in Indulgences

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MorgueFile image

I was thinking about Twitter the other day, and of course that reminded me of chocolate.

You mean it’s not that way for you?

If you’ve ever seen the classic I Love Lucy episode, the one where Lucy and Ethel get a job in a chocolate factory, you’ll know where I’m going with this. The chocolate candies come down the conveyor belt, and the intrepid duo must wrap each piece before it reaches the next stage in the packaging process. Things start out well enough, but the conveyor belt quickly speeds up, and the candies move faster and faster down the line. To Lucy and Ethel’s dismay, many unwrapped chocolates are swiftly making their way past the point of no return. Their martinet of a supervisor will be furious, the girls will lose their jobs, and the only way to avoid catastrophe is to hide the evidence —in their toques, down their uniforms, and in their mouths, as this picture illustrates.

My Twitter feed reminds me of chocolate speeding down a conveyor belt. I want to grab it all (i.e. read each tweet), but it can’t be done. I would have to either monitor my iPhone 24/7, or set other tasks aside to regularly review huge helpings of tweets at one sitting—dipping into a vast candy bowl of information. Other things clamor for my attention. One must sleep and eat. One wants to hug and kiss one’s husband, and otherwise participate in the analog world.

And of course, there’s all the writing and blogging that one must do to meet the November NaBloPoMo challenge.

🙂

So I do the best that I can, assiduously marking the tweets that I want to revisit for closer scrutiny, skimming linked articles with the alacrity of Lucy Ricardo twisting waxed paper on a chocolate, and tweeting or retweeting—lobbing little gifts out into the world that I think you might enjoy.

How do people manage all of this? I’m a late adopter, no question. I’m still learning my way around the Twitterscape. (A blogger called The Late Bloomer Bride wrote one of the best lines I’ve ever read about coming to the party late: “I knew at an early age that I was a late-bloomer.” Good stuff.)

One thing I did adopt early, however, was a love of chocolate. And it was a tweet last month, from the Huffington Post, that gave me the sweetest gift of all: the news that there are health benefits to the rich, dark, decadence that I’ve enjoyed ever since I cut my first tooth.

Huffington Post’s Healthy Living reported on a Swedish study that found a link between high chocolate consumption and a 20-percent decrease in stroke risk among women.

This is not the first report to determine that chocolate, not unlike red wine, can be good for you, and this is not to say we should all make a mad dash to the kids’ Halloween stash as if it were the prescription counter at Walgreen’s. As with all indulgences, moderation is key, especially since chocolate is not a low-calorie, low-fat, low-sugar food item. But if you are thinking of sneaking a bit from their haul, go for the dark chocolate. It’s better for you.

John and I just finished dinner, and will shortly be enjoying chocolate cupcakes for dessert. But if you’re following me on Twitter, you no doubt already know that.