Chocolate Pound Cake with Mocha Glaze

While the rest of the world was making New Year's resolutions regarding health, making better choices and maintaining a workout regimen, my mind was in a different place.

I already workout 6 days a week.. how else would I stay under 400 pounds with all these sweets?? so no need to go there. And as far as health is concerned, despite what it may appear, we eat pretty healthy in our house as far as actual meals are concerned.

So what was my New Years resolution? I went with something that I knew I could keep: getting through all my cookbooks.

After receiving over 10 cookbooks for Christmas, in addition to the shelves I already have full, something needed to be done.

It's difficult to get through you books sometimes.. I always begin with good intentions, marking various recipes, flagging techniques I want to try, but then I start browsing the internet and it all goes out the window. It's so easy to get caught up in all the goodies on foodbuzz, foodgawker or tastespotting and before I know it, I'm recreating something that I've seen on one of the wonderful blogs I so eagerly follow or taking the easy way out with a recipe from a site like allrecipes.com that already has rave reviews.

But this year is going to be different; I'm going to start using the recipes that adorn the vast pages of my cookbook collection waiting so patiently on the shelves for me.

So that brings us to this delicious recipe for a Chocolate Pound Cake from All Cakes Considered. When I found this book at a local library sale I fell in love with the story behind it. For one year, the author, Melissa Gray, brought in a new cake every Monday for her colleagues at NPR, where she is a producer for the show All Things Considered. Her year long adventure left her with over 50 cakes, tips, tricks and techniques that she now shares with her readers.

A while back I had a reader ask if I had a good chocolate pound cake recipe for them to try. At the time, I did not and although it is long overdue, I hope they're still out there and I hope they'll give this cake a try.

Chocolate Pound Cake
recipe from All Cakes Considered
Fills a 10-inch bundt pan
Oven: 325 Bake time: 1 1/2 hours

3 cups AP flour
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup shortening
1 1/4 cup whole milk
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
5 eggs

Preheat oven to 325. Spray bundt pan with cooking spray and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, and cocoa.
Gradually add butter, shortening, and milk and beat on medium speed until smooth.
Add baking powder and salt, beating until incorporated.
Add vanilla and then add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until thin knife comes out clean.
Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes before removing by flipping onto a plate.
Optional: Pour mocha glaze generously over cake

Mocha Glaze
1/2 cup hot water
2 TBS instant espresso or coffee
1 TBS unsweetened cocoa
1 cup powdered sugar

Prepare right before serving.
In a small bowl, mix powdered sugar and cocoa.
In a mug or measuring cup mix 1/2 cup hot water and instant coffee/espresso until dissolved.
Slowly add instant coffee to sugar/cocoa mixture, adding just enough coffee to make a thin glaze and whisking smooth (You will probably not use all the instant coffee that you made)
Pour generously over top cake.

Happy Baking!! 

Ice Cream Petit Fours- August DB Challenge

No, this is not what they're supposed to look like...

I don't even know where to begin with this challenge.

It seemed so simple and had so much promise.. all the ingredients alone were perfect... together they were going to be delicious. I couldn't even wait till I was done leveling the cake before eating the scraps of the Brown Butter Pound Cake. And Amaretto Ice Cream? Yes please.

But sandwiched together? Fail.

In petit four form? Epic fail.

Maybe they knew how good they were alone and just didn't want to come together with the Chocolate Glaze to top it all off? Whatever the case may be, all I know is is that I ended up with a huge chocolate-y, melted ice cream mess in my tiny galley kitchen. The one thing that does makes me feel better is knowing some other people had the same problem..I really need to stop waiting till the last minute to complete the challenges, but sometimes the month just slips away from me!

The August 2010 Daring Bakers' Challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa's challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop."


Brown Butter Pound Cake
Oven: 325 Bake time: 25 minutes
Yields 9x9 square pan or 9inch round cake

19 TBS butter
2 cups sifted cake flour (if you don't have this you can make your own by placing 2 TBS of cornstarch into a measuring cup and filling the rest of AP flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour pan.
Place butter in a skillet over medium heat. Brown butter until color changes to dark brown and butter starts to smell nutty (constantly mix!) Pour into shallow bowl and place in freezer for about 15-20 minutes or until slightly congealed.
In a small bowl whisk cake flour, baking powder and salt.
Beat chilled brown butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, and then add vanilla extract.
Stir in flour at low speed until just combined.
Scrape into prepared pan and bake until golden brown on top and toothpick comes out clean.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan to cool completely.

Amaretto Ice Cream
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
about a shot or two of Amaretto (or more if you want really boozy ice cream)

In a medium bowl, use a hand mixer to combine milk and sugar until dissolved.
Stir in vanilla and Amaretto to taste.
Pour mixture into chilled freezer bowl in ice cream machine.
Let mixture churn and thicken for about 25-30 minutes.
Transfer ice cream to freezer safe bowl and place in freezer over night.

Chocolate Glaze
9 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 TBS light corn syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract

Stir heavy cream and light corn syrup in a small sauce pan over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Let sit for about 30 seconds before whisking until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in vanilla and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.

Assembly
                                                             
1. Line same size pan that you baked your cake in, with plastic wrap so no sides are exposed. Spread about 1 3/4-2 cups of ice cream into pan. Cover with more plastic wrap and freeze for several hours.

We're still looking good.

2. Once pound cake has cooled completely, level the top and then split the cake in half horizontally to form 2 thin layers.

Yup, perfect cake...a little leveling

3. Unwrap frozen ice cream and flip onto one of the layers of cake and top with second layer. Re-wrap and return to freezer over night.

I should have known this was going too well.

4. Make chocolate glaze
5. While glaze cool, cut cake into little squares

We're still doing ok, until they sit for a few...

And this is where the failing begins.

6. Glaze the petit fours one at a time by spooning glaze over cakes  (I placed them on a cooling rack with a cookie sheet underneath to catch the falling chocolate)

Noooo...they're meellltinggg.

7. Place petit fours onto parchment paper lined baking sheet and return to freezer for at least an hour

Ugh.

Mess.

The assembly may not have been perfect, but at least the final product still tasted good!

Until next time Daring Bakers...please no more ice cream!!

After this slight catastrophe I ask you out there in the blog world.. 

1. Does anyone know how to make homemade ice cream harder?

2. Does anyone have any good tips for covering petit fours with a glaze?

3. For those of you who made these and won, HOW DID YOU DO IT!?

4. Would anyone still eat these? haha