Cakes & Bakes: Brooklyn blackout cake

This week, we discussed that we hadn’t eaten any chocolate cake for ages, so when I discovered Brooklyn blackout cake, I knew it was the next one for me to give a try.

The story goes that the blackout cake was invented in Brooklyn during the blackouts of the 2^nd World War by local bakers, Ebinger’s. It consists of layers of chocolate cake, sandwiched together with chocolate custard or pudding and topped with chocolate cake crumbs.

At first glance, it appears to be a difficult cake to produce, but it isn’t. Just tackle it in stages and you’ll see how easy… and delicious it is.

I’ve said in previous recipe posts that it can be difficult to get hold of buttermilk. However, a simple solution to this is add the juice of half a lemon to 130ml of full-fat milk, stir and set aside for 5 minutes. Ta dah… home-made buttermilk! The addition of buttermilk stops this chocolate cake from being too sweet and cloying.

I usually use buttercream between the layers of cake, but this chocolate custard was an eye opener; it spread really well and tastes superb.

This is the first time that I’ve covered a cake in crumbs; again, what a revelation! It gives the cake a different and unusual texture.

The cake is sweet, without being too sweet; moist and gooey and, from other people’s reviews, tastes even better when eaten the following day.

This is definitely a recipe to be repeated again & again.

Click here to save the Brooklyn blackout cake recipe to Pinterest

Brooklyn blackout cake

Jane Hornby

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Cook Time 30

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 8

Ingredients

For the custard filling and topping

250 g/9oz golden caster sugar
500 ml/¾pt full-fat milk
140 g/5oz dark chocolate broken up into pieces
50 g/1¾oz cornflour
2 tsp espresso powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

For the cake

140 g/5oz unsalted butter plus extra for greasing
100 ml/3½fl oz vegetable oil
140 g/5oz buttermilk or 130ml full-fat milk with the juice of ½ a lemon stirred in
100 ml/3½fl oz coffee made with 1 tsp espresso powder
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
250 g/9oz plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp baking powder
50 g/1¾oz cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
250 g/9oz light muscovado sugar

Instructions

For the custard (This needs to be prepared first as it needs to chill completely)

Put all the ingredients, except the vanilla, into a large saucepan and bring it gently to the boil, whisking all the time, until the chocolate has melted and you have a silky, thick custard
Stir in the vanilla extract and a pinch of salt, then scrape the custard into a wide, shallow bowl. Cover the surface with cling film, cool, then chill for at least 3 hours or until cold and set

For the cake

Preheat the oven to 175ºC/175ºF/Gas mark 4
Grease & line the bases of 2 x 20cm round cake tins with parchment paper
Melt the butter in a pan or in the microwave
Once melted, beat in the vegetable oil, buttermilk, espresso powder and eggs
Over a large mixing bowl, sieve all the dry ingredients (except the muscovado sugar) together
Stir in the muscovado sugar, squashing any large lumps with the back of a spoon/spatula
Pour over the wet ingredients and combine until the batter is smooth
Divide the batter equally between the prepared tins and bake for 25-30 mins until risen and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean
Cool for 10 minutes in the tins, then remove and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely, parchment-side down
Remove the parchment linings from the cakes. If the cakes are domed, trim them flat
Cut each cake in half horizontally using a large serrated knife
Put your least successful layer and any trimmings into a processor and pulse it to crumbs (I simply cut it into pieces and rubbed them together using my fingertips). Tip the crumbs into a large bowl
Sit one layer on a cake plate and spread it with a quarter of the custard
Sandwich the next layer on top, add another quarter of the custard
Top with the final layer of cake
Spoon the remaining custard on top of the cake, spreading it around the top and down the sides until smooth
Chill for 15 minutes to firm up the custard again
Hold the cake over the bowl containing the crumbs, then sprinkle and gently press a layer of crumbs all over the cake. Brush any excess from the plate. You’ll have some crumbs left
Chill for at least 2 hours before serving

The cake can be made up to 2 days ahead; it gets fudgier and more enticing the longer you leave it!

Keyword Brooklyn, cake, chocolate, chocolate cake, New York

Cakes & Bakes: Butterkuchen

When I saw the headline of the Guardian article – Churn Baby Churn – I knew that there’d be a recipe for me to attempt. You see, the recipes in the collection all have one thing in common… lots & lots of butter… Justin’s favourite ingredient!

I think I may have heard of butterkuchen (butter cake) before – perhaps I’d seen it made on Bake Off. Butterkuchen or Freud-und-Leid-Kuchen (Joy and Sorrow cake) or Beerdigungskuchen (funeral cake) is often served on occasions such as weddings and funerals or alongside a coffee as a sweet snack in (particularly Northern) German coffee shops. It’s made using a yeasted, enriched dough and, as well as all that butter, huge amounts of sugar too.

You spread the well-kneaded dough out on to a rectangular baking sheet, allow it to rise, prod holes in it, fill the holes with cubes of cold butter, sprinkle with lashings of sugar and flaked almonds, allow to rise again before baking for a quarter of an hour.

The resulting cake is truly scrumptious. The taste and texture reminded Justin of doughnuts. I thought that it also looked like a sweet version of a focaccia.

It’s a new favourite cake on our recipe rolodex!

Click here or on the image below to save the butterkuchen recipe to Pinterest

Butterkuchen

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Cook Time 15

Course Dessert

Servings 8