chocolate fudge cake with peanut butter creme filling

 
 
 
 

Karen asked for cake for her birthday. This has never happened before because she doesn't like cake. I wouldn't say she hates it, just doesn't see the point. 

There's always a lack of understanding, common ground, on particular topics in a relationship. Ours is cake. We love pie. Diggin on the cupcakes. But two roads diverge on the issue of cake. I say yes. She says meh.

Except for one cake, that is. Remember our mention of the Chocolate Bar cookbook with the best brownies in. the. world. a while back? It also contains the best chocolate cake we've ever eaten. Fudge. It's like a cake of fudge. Not cakey at all. Dense, moist, giant-wet-crumb. And a deep chocolate butter frosting for the ages. The best part of it is that it gets better the longer it sits, if you can wait. 

Karen asked for cake because our son was disappointed that she didn't have a cake with candles on her actual birthday. She had pie. And we didn't do candles. Apparently, it is not acceptable to a 3-year-old to experience a birthday without a cake. Or candles. So Karen's eyes got dreamy when she said, "Make me the chocolate fudge cake. But with peanut butter. Somehow. Figure it out."

Slept on her challenge for a night. Then I had it. I'd take the most perfect chocolate cake in the world and shove it full of the filling from the most perfect peanut butter cookie sandwich in the world - the Bouchon nutter butters. This was a holy marriage of chocolate and peanut butter, fudge and an unbearable lightness of being. 

Safest bet I've ever made. Also, the best cake I've ever made. This cake is complete. It is perfected. All other chocolate fudge peanut butter cakes will fall short (sorry). It might not win any beauty contests, but I have no tolerance for pretty little things that aren't worth their calories. This cake is worth it.

Make this for someone you love, especially if you are that someone. You deserve it. Really.

recipe | chocolate fudge cake (via The Chocolate Bar cookbook) with peanut butter creme filling (via Bouchon Bakery)

For the cake

• 2 2/3 c all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 c sugar
• 1 c packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 c unsweetened nonalkalized cocoa powder
• 2 t baking powder
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 3 large eggs
• 2/3 c sour cream
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1/2 c corn oil (I used canola. We survived.)
• 1 1/4 c. ice water

For the fudge frosting

• 6 oz unsweetened chocolate (if you don't like intense dark chocolate like our friend, Alyssa A., you might want to use semi- or bittersweet chocolate)
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 2 c confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 1 T vanilla extract

For the filling

• 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ½ c creamy peanut butter, preferably Skippy
• 1 2/3 c confectioners' sugar

The cake

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, sift the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder & soda, and salt. Whisk the ingredients together until well mixed. Smack the bowl on the backside and tell it how pretty it looks. Then feel ashamed.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla until well blended. Don't say anything to them. 

Pull out the electric mixer and slap on the paddle attachment or beaters. On low speed, mix together the oil and butter. Beat in the water. See how cool it is? You've got solid fats now. That's the secret to the recipe. Turn off the mixer. Get excited.

Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix on low for 1 minute. Scrape down sides. Add the egg mixture and praise them. They're ready to accept it now. Blend it all together, maybe a minute. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans.

Bake for 50-55 minutes. Don't split the difference. Start with 50 and test to see if it comes out clean. Add a minute each time until you're happy.

Cool the cakes in the pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Then invert the cakes on the rack and remove the pans. Cool completely.

The fudge frosting

Melt your chocolate, either over a double boiler or 90 second on 70% in the microwave. Let it cool completely.

Clean your mixer bowl and paddle/beaters. Slap it back together and beat the butter on medium-high for 1 minute until it's creamy. Add the sifted confectioners' sugar and beat until well blended and light, 2-3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and drizzle in the chocolate. Bump up the speed to medium high and beat for 1 minute until glossy.

The peanut butter creme

Cream together the butter, peanut butter, and confectioners' sugar with the paddle attachment, probably 2 minutes.

Assemble

Slice off the domed tops of the cakes so they are flat. Place a layer on your serving plate. Add on the peanut butter creme. Smooth out without touching the sides (squishing it out the side is tasty but a little ungainly). Place on the second layer. Spread out the fudge frosting on the top and sides using an offset spatula. You're welcome.

Hint - this cake benefits from some refrigeration. It helps the entire enterprise of cake and peanut butter and fudge frosting stand up to the world united while melding the layers together. Maybe an hour. Not a lot. Or forget it and just dig into the cake. Perfect slices are for when you need to appear fancy. Get over it and eat.

soup and salad

I have a love/hate relationship with a lot of things. Gin. Swedish Fish. Yo Gabba Gabba.

Lately, some love/hate has developed with Thomas Keller. To be clear, Keller is my hero. I want to go there. Keller has some of the top-rated restaurants in the country. Dude was on Top Chef, but not until last season, which makes him awesome for holding out.

I lusted after his Bouchon cookbook. And one day, a few years ago, I ran a training session on internal branding (don't ask) at the private dining room at Bouchon in Las Vegas. I was more excited about the food than the work. For breakfast, there were these amazing oatmeal yougurt things in jelly jars with the hinged tops. I ate three. And then, at the end of the day, we took the class to into the dining room where I ordered almost $75 worth of French fries because they are perfect. I shared the fries, not terribly willingly.

In the last week, we got two of his cookbooks - Bouchon and Ad Hoc at Home. They are perfect. Gorgeous photography. Such thought and care. Craft. And utterly impossible, given the week we've had.

We really try to make time for food. For slow food and for sinking into our food as we make it. There's a lot of hope in our food. Most days. But it's been a week that's challenged all of that. Karen's LASIK, my work. Oh, and three kids. And then to look at Keller's books and realize we can't get there, we're not living in Keller's world even when he explicitly dumbs it down to make it accessible for the home cook. Food was discouraging this week, a reminder that there was no extra energy to give, and we'd fallen way short of what we wanted to do every night for ourselves.
But then there is soup. And salad vinaigrette. And there is inspiration.

Flipping through the two books, Karen was drawn to the French onion soup and his vinaigrette recipes: one inspired, one was easy perfection.

The Soup

I make a good French onion soup. It's not fancy, and it keeps close to very basic ingredients. When I looked at the Bouchon recipe, Keller talks about the importance of cooking the onions low and slow, letting them melt into themselves. Four hours. He wants the onions to cook for four hours. I didn't have four hours. Typically I cook them for 30 minutes. As I was ready to admit defeat, I wondered what would happen if I pushed the cooking time. Just keep cooking until I want to stop. The point was to push myself, my food, and see what happens. Depth of flavor comes from time, so let's see how deep we can get.

I made it for two and a half hours. It wasn't the Keller four. But it was two hours longer than normal. And, of course, Thomas Keller was right. 

So, here's my recipe for French Onion Soup, inspired by Thomas Keller:

• 3 lbs yellow onions sliced 1/4 inch thin.
• Medium low heat, a heavy pot, 1 tablespon of canola, 3 tablespoons of butter.
• Place onions in once the butter has melted. Stir a bit. Put the lid on and cook for 30 min to 4 hours (as long as you can without going insane). Stir every 15-20 minutes and check to see how things are going.
• Stir in a pinch of sugar, some kosher salt, some pepper somewhere around the 15 minute mark or whenever you feel like it. I won't judge you.
• Onions will become a ridiculous golden amber color. Remember, you're going low and slow here like good barbecue, so don't get afraid to get them darker.
• Add in 2 c. of red wine, boil until reduced by half. Add 8-ish cups of beef stock, 1 bay leaf uncovered for 45 min - 1 hour.
• I also throw in fresh thyme and/or rosemary along with the bay leaf and stock if I have them because that's how I roll. I should tie them up with kitchen twine before I add them. Emphasis on "should."
• Salt and pepper before serving. Taste it. Don't be afraid of salt (we're talking Kosher salt here. I'm very afraid of table salt).
• Pull out the herbs and bay leaf.
• Turn on your oven to 400 degrees.
• Slice up some good bread (I'd think a loaf of French bread might make sense). Toast/dry it out in an oven on 400 degrees. Rub the cut sides of the toasted bread with a cut garlic clove.
• Ladle soup into individual bowls, top with bread, cover with a slice of Comte and add shredded Emmentaler. Or whatever stinky Swiss-friendly cheese you want. 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.
• Take a bite. You're welcome.

The Salad Vinaigrette

I have a personal vendetta against shelf-stable salad dressing. I suppose there's nothing morally wrong with them (debatable), but they're expensive and take up way too much room in our refrigerator. Plus, rarely do they taste as good as the kind you make yourself. Most nights when we have salad, I add in a bowl a favorite vinegar, diced shallot, salt, pepper, and olive oil. I end up with exactly the amount I want with items I already have on hand. Pennies. Frugal and tasty.

And I was wrong. This vinaigrette takes three ingredients, and ends up tasting better than anything I've made. We ended up using about a tablespoon to dress our greens, which meant we had a lot leftover. We happily made room for it in the fridge, where it keeps up to two weeks.
Make this.
Karen was flipping through Bouchon and saw Keller's house vinaigrette. It's stuck in the back of the book, where recipes go when they want to be left alone. So when she said she wanted me to make it, I didn't have high hopes.

Bouchon House Vinaigrette (based upon Thomas Keller's Bouchon recipe)

• 1/4 c. Dijon mustard
• 1/2 c. red wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 c. canola oil

Place the Dijon and vinegar into a blender or a food processor. Our blender has a bladder control problem, so I use the food processor. I don't imagine I could get the emulsion Keller's going for with a whisk and my arm. This is going to be extraordinary, so use power tools.

Zip the mustard and vinegar a bit until mixed. Then, with the food processor running, drizzle in the oil very slowly. A nice steady stream. I know it sounds like a lot of oil (even though it's a standard ratio Keller's using), but you'll barely use any of it in your salad, so relax.

Watch what's happening...the vinaigrette is turning from a liquid to some crazy whipped goodness that sort of undulates and taunts you, knowing you can't restrain yourself from taking just a little taste. Pay attention to that first taste, because that's the moment you'll say goodbye to bottled dressing.