The Dorie Cake

Now here’s an unusual post – in a good way I assure you! Firstly, because it’s the first time I’m blogging a recipe without having actually tasted the finished article myself! :O I KNOW! Shocking but I’m doing it anyway And secondly, because this is a shared venture – with my lovely foodie friend Nic (and die-hard Dorie Greenspan fan!) – find her here at her award winning baking blog

So what are we jointly blogging about? Why, the cover cake from Dorie Greenspan’s amazingly beautiful “Baking From My Home To Yours” of course – it just *had* to be done This book as I’ve waxed lyrical over before is a real essential for the home baker if you ask me and this cake in particular has been winking at me, encouraging me to bake it for a very long time. So when me and Nic were chatting on FaceBook* (*=I have a new FB page! Check me out there too!) a few weeks around about Dorie, we thought it was RUDE to not blog this choccie cake any longer! So here it is – I give you not one but TWO triple layered, chocolate chocolate chip cake frosted in marshmallow frosting and decorated with the crumbs of a sacrificed layer of said cakes:

Double chocolatey trouble

So why two cakes not one big fat one? Well the answer is in the question – I’ve gotta conserve calories in the run up to Chrimbo people!  So I made two cakes from the one recipe’s worth of batter and frosting – and I made two 6 inch cakes perfectly proportioned with only a wee splash of frosting leftover (very pleasing to my OCD self that is hahaha!) which I gave away!  Yup, one to my Hungry HUbby’s work and one to my girls I work with. I am told HH’s work colleagues hoovered it up and the feedback was “yummy, moist, light, fluffy – yum!” Whilst my girls typically ate it within 5 minutes of me deposting it in the manager’s office to much “mmm, oooh, ahhh’s” so that can’t be bad really can it? The reason I didn’t get any was that I was rather up the wall with the Hubster being in a lot of pain from a poorly tooth which after 3 sleepless nights for us both, I had to whip out for him, poor guy (don’t worry – I rewarded him with a McDonald’s strawberry shake on the way home for being a Very Brave Boy aw!). I just didn’t feel like cake after all that

Anyway – what I can tell you is that the recipe is a super easy creaming method. there is a bar of dark choc melted in the mix and another bigger one chopped finely for the “chip” element. The frosting is easy to make (even without a sugar thermometer like me and Nic now know!;)  but don’t think you will end up with something that resembles a cake coated in the somewhat stretchy, chewy store-bought marshmallows. It’s very soft and almost dissolves as you eat it. Back to the cake though – just how decadently dark and moist do these crumbs look please?

The only wee problem with the chocolate chunk element of this cake is that when slicing, the knife can snag on them a tad leaving the layers a bit wonky – but to be honest, it’s no major drama.  Plus if you had three same sized tins, I reckon baking for a shorter time in three tins thus eliminating the slicing element altogether would be a grand idea.  Under all that marhsmallow and cake crumb though, who would know, who would care?

Ah - doesn't he look like two big fluffy, cakey double-stuffed Oreos stacked up? Just saying!

So there we have it – my rendition of The Dorie Cake – now remember to stop on by at Nic’s blog and see what she made of the recipe (I can’t wait myself!) and when you’re finished, do come stop by my brand-spanking-new FaceBook page – you might even find extra photos of my posts on there, amongst other things   Mwah to y’all XXX