Too much cake...

Well hello again! I thought I should update you all on the whole, quest-for-the-best-chocolate-cake-in-the-world situation. Sunday's cake was quite good, honestly. I'd call it a home-style cake, almost. It tasted just like Grandma's cake should: sweet, chocolatey, tasty- A even asked me for the recipe! I'll bet you can tell from this picture exactly how tasty it was:

Alas, it was unfortunately not the great wall of chocolate. So I was back to the drawing board, and this is what I came up with. Not pretty, is it? And by not pretty, I mean massive, HUGE FAIL!! It came from Julia Child's cookbook, and I'm not sure where I went wrong. The only leavening action (for you novices, leavening is what makes baked goods expand- both upwards and out to the sides) in the cake was from thoroughly beating the eggs- not just egg whites, mind you (like you would with a standard angel food job), but whole eggs. They were VERY fluffy (sorry, I should have taken pictures but I was working fast).

Because of the Eggs, the cake really behaved like a souffle, which means it was a giant pain in the heiney. Also a possible contributor: this cake is gluten free. Not in the gluten-free sense that it was intended to be such, but as per Julia, this cake uses no flour. Instead, you use cornstarch for structure, which was supposed to produce a very light texture, which I thought would be good. Looking back, I think I was confusing "light" texture with "silky" texture. I was going for the latter. As you can see, whatever the cause, we suffered some serious cracking and falling. These ended up being the texture (and flavor, oddly enough) of fluffy brownies. So, I guess if I had to make gluten-free brownies for someone, I might try this, odd as that may seem.

Those cakes never even made it to the frosting stage- we ate some straight from the pans, but then I gave up, tossed them, and started over. This time it was personal. SO, in case you're keeping track, Grandma hadn't exactly come through for me, and Julia had just plain FAILED me. Where else could I turn?? The answer: to Alton. WATCH THIS EPISODE OF GOOD EATS!!! It's around 20 minutes (you only need to watch the first ten, unless you're interested in red velvet cake- then watch the whole thing), but it has officially changed my life.

Well, did you learn something (other than that AB is a wee bit cheesy, that is)? After hunting for Dutched Cocoa ALL OVER THE PLACE, (I eventually found at a local health food store, ironically enough- the last place I thought it might be), I figured I'd give ANOTHER cake a whirl. That's three this week, if you're counting. See? Like I said at the beginning, too much cake... I was thinking "If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to take a break from cake..." Well, here's what happened:

What's that? Do I hear angels singing in the background? I'm here to tell you, Alton Brown's scientific approach really works with this one. The only problem I had was this: The cakes were VERY domed. I'll need to spread the batter to the edges more next time to accommodate the expansion and hopefully get a more consistent, flat cake. Otherwise, this was great. I assembled this guy in a bit of a hurry, so aesthetically... it's not the best, but it's not ugly either:

So, I've found the perfect cake recipe, and now I just need to doll it up. If I can flatten things out and take more time to decorate, I think I'll have accomplished Mission: Impossibly Devilish Devil's Food Cake (and I'll be sure to let you know when it's officially been accomplished). Oh, and another indicator of this cake's sheer, blissful perfection? It was SO dark and chocolatey that Hubby didn't, in fact, like it... which in my world, means we're right on track.

I'm gonna say it this time.

Bon Apetite!