The Humble Kitchen

Last time Sarah came to visit we made this flourless chocolate cake that I’d seen Jacques Pepin prepare on the PBS show Julia and Jacques. It intrigued me because I’d never seen a cake made with ganache and egg whites, and also because the recipe requires no flour. This is the sort of cake that the French would make into a bûche de Noël, but the batter can also go into ramekins for little chocolate soufflés.

You’ll need a half sheet pan (or a 11 x 17 jelly roll pan) and the following ingredients:

For the soufflé

1 cup heavy cream

8 oz bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces

7 egg whites, at room temperature

2 Tbs granulated sugar

For the filling

1 cup heavy cream, well chilled

½ tsp vanilla

1½ Tbs granulated sugar (optional)

1 Tbs cognac (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350º and line the pan with buttered parchment.

To make the soufflé, heat one cup of cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Add the chocolate pieces, lower the heat and whisk to melt the chocolate thoroughly. Once smooth and well combined, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

Whip the egg whites and 2 tablespoons of sugar until they have formed stiff peaks with a glossy sheen.

Scoop about a quarter of the beaten egg whites into the pan with the ganache, and whisk to combine. Now pour the lightened ganache into the egg whites and use a rubber spatula to gently fold the mixture. Do not over mix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth into an even layer.

Place the pan in the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. When done the cake should be set and puffy. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack until room temperature.

Once the cake is cool make your whipped cream.

Lift the parchment lined cake from the pan, long side facing you. The recipe says to dust the cake with cocoa powder at this point, but honestly we forgot, and it was still good.

Lift cake, still on the parchment,  out of the pan.

Spread on whipped cream.

Start to roll.

Lift up the near edge of the cake and parchment and start to fold it away from you. Begin to peel the parchment off the cake. Roll another few inches, pressing the parchment to make a tight spiral.

Keep rolling.

Keep it snug.

The cake should still be sitting on the parchment paper, and at this point you can wrap the parchment around it and either transfer it to a platter to serve immediately, or refrigerate for up to 4 hours.

Trim the edges.

Enjoy.

-Jennifer (and Sarah)

This is THE recipe I go to when I want to make coffee cake. It is based on Rebecca Reilly’s recipe in her  book, Gluten-Free Baking.

Something new this time around was to insert a cream cheese filling just as they did in the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine. I used the recipe  they recommend and this worked marvelously. The filling did not sink and was a welcome cheesecake-like addition to the cake.

It received rave reviews from those co-workers who received a piece such as “This is fantastic, light and airy. You will now make all the cakes for our company’s events.”-My boss and a VP. Also in an email was “OMG, that is easily the best coffee cake I’ve ever eaten. Brains and you can cook, who would’ve thunk” and [cube neighbor looking everywhere around my desk] “There’s gotta be more of that coffee cake somewhere.” And finally, “So everyone gets a piece except me, wtf?”

Because there’s no gluten, it can’t possibly get tough. See, there are upsides to gluten free baking, you just need to look somewhere other than to croissants.

If you want to make a cake that everyone will love, make this cake. Even if you’re not gluten free.

First things first! Take out one box of cream cheese, one stick of butter, 1c of sour cream and three eggs from the fridge. Set oven to 350 and then prep your pan of choice (I use a bundt).

Then make the streusel topping:

1/3 c tapioca flour

1/3 c rice flour

scant 1/2 c granulated sugar

1/2 stick of very cold, better yet frozen, butter (do not use the one you took out of the fridge)

2/3 c toasted almonds (or not toasted, I used raw once and no one noticed)

1/3 c shredded, unsweetened coconut

1/3 c mini chocolate chips (I use normal sized ones usually because I am not a Nestle fan)

Mix all the dry ingredients together and then shred the butter into the bowl. Mix together, cover and set aside in fridge.

Cream Cheese Filling

1 box of cream cheese

1t vanillla

2T sugar

Beat these together until smooth and set aside.

Cake:

1/2 c each of brown rice, tapioca and potato starch flours

1/2 c almond flour

1t egg replacer

1 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

1/2 t xanthan gum

1/4 salt

Mix all in a bowl and set aside.

In your mixer:

Cream one stick of butter until white and then add 1c ever-so-lightly-packed brown sugar and beat again until fluffy. Slowly add three eggs and then 1c sour cream. Add 3t vanilla and 1t almond extract. Add the dry stuff and mix until just combined.

Add about 1/4c of batter to the cream cheese mixture and stir- this is the filling.

Sprinkle some of the struesel on the bottom of the pan and then add about half the batter, smoothing the top. Put the cream cheese filling along the middle of the cake (try not to get too close to the sides or touch the pan). Swirl it into the batter just a bit with a knife. Then sprinkle about half the struesel on top. Then put down the rest of the batter and then the rest of the struesel.  This is not an exact science and realistically now matter what you do, it’s going to taste great.

Bake for about 50 minutes. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, the remove from pan and cool on a rack. Enjoy!

~Sarah