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Chocolate Cake

by
Joan Nathan
March 19, 2021
Chocolate Cake

Whenever my former editor, the venerable and recently retired Judith Jones, looks at a cookbook proposal, she asks herself whether the writer has anything new and worthwhile to contribute to the cookbook canon. For the most part, Jones selected winners: Julia Child, Marcella Hazan, Claudia Roden, Lidia Bastianich, Madhur Jaffrey, and others.

Today, when there are so many cookbooks published each year, it’s difficult to know which one will make a long-term impact, especially when, as Child told me, none of them is perfect. Even her iconic Mastering the Art of French Cooking had corrections well into the fifth printing.

What about Jewish cookbooks? I’ll narrow my task, by concentrating on Hanukkah baking recipes in the cookbooks I think made a difference in the past year or so.

Featured in: Bake Off

Recipe by: Sarabeth Levine

Ingredients

  • 10tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch cubes and chilled, plus softened butter to grease the pan
  • 2 ⅓cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus flour for the pan
  • 1tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 ½cups whole milk
  • ½ounce unsweetened chocolate, or ½ square, finely chopped
  • 1cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
  • 1 ½teaspoons baking soda
  • ½teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1 ¾cups superfine sugar
  • 1teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 3large eggs, at room temperature, beaten
  • Confectioners’ sugar, for garnish, optional
Yield: 10-12 servings

Preparation

Mrs. Stein’s Chocolate Cake, adapted from Sarabeth’s Bakery: From My Hands to Yours, by Sarabeth Levine

  • Step 1

    Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Butter and flour the inside of an 8-10 cup fluted tube pan or bundt pan and tap out the excess flour.

  • Step 2

    In a glass measuring cup, stir the lemon juice into the whole milk. Let stand in a warm place, near the preheating oven, while preparing the rest of the batter. The milk will curdle.

  • Step 3

    Bring ½ inch of water to a simmer in a small saucepan and turn off the heat. Put the chocolate in a custard cup or ramekin and set it in the hot water. Let stand until the chocolate has melted, then remove from the water, and stir until smooth. Let stand until the chocolate reaches room temperature.

  • Step 4

    Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.

  • Step 5

    Put the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Gradually beat in the sugar and then add the vanilla. Beat until the mixture is light in color and texture, scraping down the sides occasionally, about 4 minutes. Slowly beat in the eggs. Reduce the speed to low. Mix in the cooled chocolate. Alternating with two equal additions of the curdled milk, add 1/3 of the flour mixture at a time, scraping down the bowl and beating until smooth after each addition.

  • Step 6

    Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.

  • Step 7

    Bake until the top of the cake springs back when gently pressed with your finger and a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool on a wire rack still in the pan for 10 minutes. Then invert and unmold the cake onto the rack and cool completely. When cool, sift confectioners’ sugar over the top of the cake, if using.