Weeknight Dessert: Chocolate Cake
February focused on Weeknight Dinner, that all important practice, born of necessity, of cooking during the work week. Weeknight dinner feeds us whether the day was spent at work or at school, whether we commute or stay within the confines of home and neighborhood, whether we keep standard hours or work the graveyard shift. Sometimes weeknight dinner feeds us on the weekend, after service shifts or days of errands, after we meet deadlines or as we wind down from leisurely afternoons. Weeknight dinner focuses on good meals that are simple to prepare, usually from pantry ingredients, collected as a library of cooking, with preparation time as a consideration.
And then there are evenings when we have a little extra time. Some of us get home early to chores waiting to be tackled, others to a long hot bath waiting to be soaked in. The slow cooker frees up evening time, as does a stop at the local diner. Some spend evening free time at the crafting table, some in front of the television. Sometimes, for those who are inclined, extra time in the evening is a gift to be responded to in kind, with bowls and mixers, making the gift of something good to eat.
By definition – heck, by their existence – desserts tread a fine line, beginning with the obvious question of whether we really need the calories. We don’t, but then dessert is supposed to be a treat, not a daily occurrence, and in our urban home that’s how we make and serve it. As a rule, we reserve big desserts such as layer cake for weekends, and communal desserts such as pie or ice cream for special occasions. Often on Sunday I bake a batch of cookies so that they’re waiting in the cookie jar to satisfy the sweet tooth during afternoon coffee breaks and after weeknight meals. If it’s hot weather there are always ice pops in the freezer.
During the week, if time allows, and usually for no good reason other than to celebrate the day, I occasionally make and serve a quick weeknight dessert. Quick breads are the go-to - lemon in spring, date-nut in summer, pumpkin and cranberry during the harvest - as are bar cookies in rich apricot or decadent toffee. Rice pudding is simple to prepare and, if watched attentively, should be ready by the time dinner is over. As a treat that is equal parts simple and special, my favorite weeknight dessert is chocolate cake.
Any baker and every eater knows that there is chocolate cake and then there is chocolate cake. There is airy chocolate sheet cake, fresh from grandma’s oven and slathered in frosting. There is dense devil’s food cake, layered with seven minute frosting. There are fancy coffeehouse chocolate tortes and plainspoken pans of brownies. There is inexplicable German Chocolate Cake and there are sunken chocolate lava cakes.
Into this arena I advance my original recipe for weeknight chocolate cake. This cake is dense and rich like a torte, deeply flavored and slightly decadent like devil’s food. It is simple to prepare and impossible to resist. We don’t make it every night or even every week, but it is a welcome treat when it arrives on the table, perhaps crowned with some sugar-dusted raspberries or a piece of candied orange peel, to celebrate nothing more special, because nothing is more special, than being together while getting through another week.
And then there are evenings when we have a little extra time. Some of us get home early to chores waiting to be tackled, others to a long hot bath waiting to be soaked in. The slow cooker frees up evening time, as does a stop at the local diner. Some spend evening free time at the crafting table, some in front of the television. Sometimes, for those who are inclined, extra time in the evening is a gift to be responded to in kind, with bowls and mixers, making the gift of something good to eat.
By definition – heck, by their existence – desserts tread a fine line, beginning with the obvious question of whether we really need the calories. We don’t, but then dessert is supposed to be a treat, not a daily occurrence, and in our urban home that’s how we make and serve it. As a rule, we reserve big desserts such as layer cake for weekends, and communal desserts such as pie or ice cream for special occasions. Often on Sunday I bake a batch of cookies so that they’re waiting in the cookie jar to satisfy the sweet tooth during afternoon coffee breaks and after weeknight meals. If it’s hot weather there are always ice pops in the freezer.
During the week, if time allows, and usually for no good reason other than to celebrate the day, I occasionally make and serve a quick weeknight dessert. Quick breads are the go-to - lemon in spring, date-nut in summer, pumpkin and cranberry during the harvest - as are bar cookies in rich apricot or decadent toffee. Rice pudding is simple to prepare and, if watched attentively, should be ready by the time dinner is over. As a treat that is equal parts simple and special, my favorite weeknight dessert is chocolate cake.
Any baker and every eater knows that there is chocolate cake and then there is chocolate cake. There is airy chocolate sheet cake, fresh from grandma’s oven and slathered in frosting. There is dense devil’s food cake, layered with seven minute frosting. There are fancy coffeehouse chocolate tortes and plainspoken pans of brownies. There is inexplicable German Chocolate Cake and there are sunken chocolate lava cakes.
Into this arena I advance my original recipe for weeknight chocolate cake. This cake is dense and rich like a torte, deeply flavored and slightly decadent like devil’s food. It is simple to prepare and impossible to resist. We don’t make it every night or even every week, but it is a welcome treat when it arrives on the table, perhaps crowned with some sugar-dusted raspberries or a piece of candied orange peel, to celebrate nothing more special, because nothing is more special, than being together while getting through another week.
Weeknight Chocolate Cake
This cake is made from pantry ingredients; click here for Urban Home Blog's Guide to the Baking Pantry, including bakeware. To learn the hand-mixer I use, click here.
For the cake
1-1/2 sticks butter (3/4 cup), plus more for the pan
1/2 cup sour cream (not low-or non-fat)
3/4 cup cocoa powder such as Hershey's, plus more for the pan
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
For the glaze
4 ounces semisweet baking chocolate
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon coffee liqueur
Make and bake the cake
- Unwrap the butter and place into a large mixing bowl to soften.
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Butter the inside of an 8-inch round cake pan. Add a tablespoon of cocoa powder to the buttered pan. Tilt the pan to coat the buttered inside of the pan with cocoa. Hold the pan over the sink and gently tap out any excess cocoa.
- Measure the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, and espresso powder into a bowl. Use a whisk to mix the dry ingredients together.
- Use a hand mixer set to low or medium-low to cream the butter until it is smooth and glossy. Measure the sugar into the creamed butter and beat at low or medium-low until the butter-sugar mixture is thick and pale.
- One at a time, mix the eggs into the butter-sugar mixture.
- Mix the vanilla extract into the butter-sugar-egg mixture.
- Use the mixer set to low to mix 1/2 of the flour-cocoa mixture into the butter-egg mixture, mixing just until combined.
- Measure the sour cream and into the batter. Mix just until combined.
- Use the mixer set to low to mix the remaining 1/2 of the flour-cocoa mixture into the butter-egg mixture, mixing just until combined.
- Use a silicon spatula to transfer the batter (it will be thick) into the prepared baking pan. Gently shake the pan side to side to ensure that the batter is spread across the pan. Use the spatula to smooth the top of the batter.
- Place the pan into the oven. Bake the cake 30 minutes or until the center of the cake is set.
- Once the cake is baked, removed the cake from the oven. Let cake cool before glazing it.
Make the glaze
- While the cake is in the oven, unwrap the baking chocolate and place it into a heatproof saucepan.
- Unwrap the butter and add it to the pan containing the baking chocolate.
- Place the pan on the back burner so that it receives the heat from the oven.
- Once the cake is out of the oven, the chocolate and butter should be melted. If they are not, melt them in the pan over very low heat.
- Once the chocolate and butter are melted, use a wire whisk to mix them until thoroughly combined and silken.
- Measure the coffee liqueur into the pan containing the chocolate glaze. Use the wire whisk to mix the coffee liqueur into the glaze until the glaze is thick and shiny.
- Set the glaze aside to thicken until the cake is ready to be glazed.
Glaze and serve the cake
- Once the cake is cool enough to touch, place a serving plate face side down on top of the pan holding the cake.
- Using oven mitts if necessary, grab the plate and the pan by the side and quickly flip so that the plate is now on the bottom with the serving side facing up, and the pan is on the top but facing down on the serving plate.
- The cake should fall onto the plate. If it sticks, let it sit, just as is with the pan on the top but facing down on the serving plate. Once the cake cools, it will fall onto the plate.
- Once the cake falls onto the plate, gently remove the pan.
- Use an offset spatula to coat the top of the cake with the glaze. Allow the glaze to run down the side of the cake but not too much; it should drip down the side but not puddle onto the plate.
- Cut and serve the cake.
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