WhiteTruffleGirl

I'm looking for small chocolate boxes for some upcoming weddings I'm doing similar to the RS-NE-5 ones offered by Package Nakzawa, but in white and other colors. Here's a link to the ones I'm referring to. http://packagenakazawa.com/page005.html Does anyone know of a source?

Does anyone have Larousse des Desserts by Herme? And if so, what is your opinion of that book?

WhiteTruffleGirl - From your posts I understand that you like the texture of the CI Sour Cream Bundt Cake over the Double Chocolate Cake, but because you prefer the taste of the Double Chocolate Cake, you are trying to tweak the texture of it to become more ideal. May I ask, why not tweak the taste of the CI Sour Cream Bundt Cake? Wouldn't the flavor profile of one cake be easier to tweak over the texture of another cake? Just wondering. ← Partly it's because I made the Double Chocolate cake first, and in it found a cake with great flavor that (in my opinion) had some serious texture problems stemming first from way too much leavening. Once I get started down that track, there was kind of no looking back for me. It was only then I felt compelled to try it against the CI cake. And since the CI cake is already very good on its own I didn't want to mess with it. As well, it can be more difficult to tweak the flavor profile of a chocolate cake because once you start increasing/changing the amount of chocolate, you have to take into account the change in the amount of cocoa butter and sugar from the chocolate and adjust your butter and sugar amounts accordingly in your recipe. It's not that I would be adverse to doing that, it's just that I didn't feel like I needed to change CI's recipe. So, ultimately I think texture CAN be easier to maniplulate than taste in chocolate cakes, but maybe the real answer is I just like a challenge.

Merstar, I can agree with you and disagree with you, but does it even really matter? The basis of the recipe I used was the eGullet tweaked Double Chocolate cake recipe. All of the changes I made to it were solely based on my attempts to improve what I felt was a suboptimal texture. I did not change any of the chocolate or sugar measurements; only those things that I felt would have the greatest impact on improving the crumb and texture. And yes, in changing those, there naturally will be some change to the overall flavor profile of the cake, …that cannot be helped, but my goal was to maintain the integrity of what I think is a great flavored cake, while improving what I perceived to be a less than great crumb. No one has to agree with me, no one has to try my version of the recipe…I did this for myself, and simply wanted to share my experiences. The tasting went somewhat as I expected. Chocolate cake—being a very subjective thing—meant that there was not any agreement in the room amongst approximately 15 “testers” as to which cake they preferred. And, it was fairly well evenly split as to which cake they liked. Nothing earth shattering or profound here…their comments pretty much mirror everything that’s already been said by everyone here. Those that liked the CI cake did so because the crumb was more delicate and it was slightly sweeter. Those that liked the Double Chocolate preferred it because it was moister and had a slightly more intense chocolate flavor. For myself, I think I generally liked many of the changes I had made to the Double Chocolate cake recipe, but the next time I make it I will do a couple of things differently. I will make it with all cake flour and I will increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees. I think both of these will help. Pending those results, I may also try backing off by one egg and re-upping the coffee slightly, but I’m not sure yet. I want to see how the combo of flour and oven temp works first.

Merstar, Yes, I should have mentioned, I did see your post and I went to one of my local grocers that has a fairly decent ethnic food aisle and they had it. So I used it in my cake yesterday. Thanks again for the recommendation. Yes, I would say it was a very successful tweakery, but the true test will be once the cake has some age on it. I think I've got the Godzilla proportion thing worked out, so here's the formula I used to make the cake yesterday. I'm looking forward to seeing how this cake tastes tonight. As well, I have a full complement of built-in tasters (notwithstanding my BIL ‘snarfers’) so I'll ask them to compare it to the CI cake. I've been thinking a little bit more about what I might do differently next time I make this cake (pending tonight's tasting). In addition to trying it with all cake flour next time, I think I'm going to go with a hotter oven, particularly now that I've increased the number of eggs. I think it will create an even lighter cake with even better rise. I'm not sure about any other modifications yet. I've got to wait and see. I'll report back tomorrow.

I made the Double Chocolate cake again today, and chose to throw caution to the wind. I pretty much changed everything I planned on in this round of cake making deciding there was no real reason not to. Here is what I did: 1) Reduced the amount of flour from 2 3/4 cups to 2 1/4 cups 2) Used a combination of AP and cake flour—1 3/4 cups AP and 1/2 cup cake flour 3) Eliminated the baking powder and re-increased the baking soda from 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons to compensate for the loss of the baking powder 4) Eliminated the vegetable oil and increased the butter to 8 oz. 5) Reduced the coffee from 12 ounces to 8 ounces plus one tablespoon (the only reason I added the additional one tablespoon was because the mixture was a little thick without it) 6) Increased the number of eggs from 3 to 5 7) Changed to a creaming mixing method 8) Changed oven temperature to 325 There actually was a method to all of that madness. The first time I made this cake I loved the flavor but like many of you was unhappy with the texture. Per my previous posts, I felt the leavener was at least part of the problem. In starting to fix that problem though it only served to emphasize—at least to me—other problems with the basic formula for this cake…problems inherited from the original Epicurious recipe. Rather than bore you with all of my rationale for each of these changes (some are obvious), let me get straight to my results. Again I baked thee cakes, an 8”, a 4” and a 3”. For comparison sake, I kept the batter depths equal to my cakes as Sunday, although I had a little left over batter due to the change in mixing method. (Doesn't that suck…I had to eat cake batter…which tasted fantastic btw.) All three cakes rose very well, although not quite as high as the CI cakes that utilize the same mixing method and were filled to the same volume in the pans. There was no molten frothing of bubbles, no doming and the cakes looked beautiful coming out of the oven. Usually I prefer to wait a day for chocolate cakes to cure before cutting into them and tasting, but needless to say I was too anxious, so I cut open the 3” cake. What a nice cake. There is absolutely no crumbling the way there was with the original recipe. The crumb is moist, but not at all sticky or “too moist” the way both my husband and I felt the last cake was. The crumb is not quite as fine as the CI crumb…but definitely getting much, much better. The flavor is wonderful. I wish I had one of the prior cakes on hand to compare it to, but I do not. I’m not sure if this one is as intensely flavored as the last one…hard to say, especially since I’m not used to eating them so soon out of the oven. But I will have the opportunity to eat this one next to the CI one tomorrow evening, so I’ll report back after that. All in all I’m very happy with most everything I tried. For me, I think the texture is significantly improved over where it’s been. I think the next time I make it the one thing I’ll change is making it with all cake flour. I’m not sure if the AP/cake flour mix is wrong, but I’d like to see if all cake flour is right. I’d be more than happy to explain to anyone that is interested why I made the changes I did, so feel free to ask if you want to know. btw…I’ve been meaning to bring this up…shouldn’t we be calling this triple chocolate cake? Edited to add: I tried to add my formula chart, but it had Godzilla proportions...I'll try to fix that and add it tomorrow.

Merstar, Thanks for the tip about Cuban espresso powders. I'll have to search it out. Do you have a brand name? That will make it easier to hunt for. I should have mentioned this in my write-up so I'm glad you brought it up. I discoverd when I went to make these cakes on Sunday morning I was basically out of espresso powder, and the nearest store that sells it is about 13 miles away. So I ground up some espresso beans in my burr grinder and steeped them briefly in my coffee (for the Double Chocolate) and the water (for the CI) to approximate the flavor I would have received from the espresso powder. I then strained that mixture through a double thickness of coffee filters over my chocolate/cocoa powder. Not the same thing I know, but something of an approximation. Like you, I am not a fan of sweet chocolate cakes. (Or sweet desserts period.) The reduction of sugar in the eGullet tweaked recipe (coupled with the switch to a combo of unsweetened and semisweet chocolate) have made this version of the cake decidedly not too sweet. Both my husband and I have very strong "too sweet" meters, and both of us felt the sweetness of this cake was just about dead on. I found out last evening I am attending a rather large family function this weekend (one of those last minute "let's get together" pot luck things) and have been asked to bring a couple of cakes. I guess this is an excuse to try yet another version of the Double Chocolate cake today with additional modifications. If it works, great...if it fails and falls or the texture is awful, I've got back-up cakes in the freezer.

The following pretty much constitutes a brain dump, so please forgive the length of this post. I took a lot of notes while baking, finishing and tasting these cakes and just wanted to make sure I didn’t leave too much out. And if anyone makes me taste another bite of chocolate cake in the next three days, I think I shall have them beheaded. Some of you might find it interesting to look at the following chart I prepared the other morning to compare the two recipes. If anyone wants to check my figures, please feel free to do so…I wasn’t fully caffeinated at the time I put it together. This is based upon the reduced baking soda version I made for the Double Chocolate cake. As you can see, there are some really interesting differences between these two cakes. As well, I thought it would be helpful for you to see a picture of the two cakes side-by-side. That’s the CI cake on the right, and the Double Chocolate cake on the left. No artistic photography here like Patrick’s…did these flat on purpose so you could properly see the differences. (Sorry for the quality of the photo…I have a very old, very crappy digital camera.) Also, I tried to do a very light layer of ganache so the cakes flavors were not masked. (Just try asking my husband to eat a cake without a bite of frosting…) Let me start by giving just a little bit of background about the baking of these two cakes. As noted in my earlier post, with the CI cake I baked an 8” round and a 4” round. The batter depth of the 8” round was 1” and 1.5” in the 4” round. The 8” round rose almost all the way up the 3” pan and the 4” round rose the full height of the 3” pan. There was absolutely no doming on either cake. All in all, the CI cakes rose beautifully. With the Double Chocolate (which I made first) I made 8”, 4” and 3” rounds. The batter depth was 1” in the 8” round and 1.5” in the 3” and 4” rounds. The cake rose to the full height in the 3” and 4” rounds, but I had significant doming in the 8” round and some doming in the other two. (I forgot my Magic Strips on the 8”, and then decided for comparison sake not to use them on the CI cake), It’s difficult to say exactly how high the 8” cake rose because of the doming. If it hadn’t domed, I would venture to say it probably would have been 2/3 up the pan. Last night as I was finishing the cakes, the first thing I immediately noticed was the CI cake had a reddish cast from the natural cocoa powder the Double Chocolate cake did not. It kind of surprised me given how much more chocolate to cocoa powder there is in the CI cake relative to the Double Chocolate cake. Yes, there is more cocoa powder in the CI cake on a percentage basis, but not on a baker’s percentage basis. If anything, I would have expected exactly the opposite. If anyone has a theory, I’d be interested to hear it. With regard to taste, having made both batters the same day I did come into this cake tasting with something of a preconceived idea of which cake I thought would have more chocolate flavor. The Double Chocolate batter was definitely much more intense and chocolately satisfying straight out of the bowl than the CI batter. (It was also darker…not a valid measure I know, but visual queues are always something we tend to notice anyway.) And, to some extent my expectations did match my taste experience, but not quite in the way I thought they would. The Double Chocolate cake comes on strong from the moment you bite into it. And it stays strong with a long finish. The CI cake is much more subtle. It starts a little softer then builds in flavor and then finishes more softly. And I think it’s mostly the coffee in the Double Chocolate cake recipe that is giving that flavor, for if you look at the chart, you’ll see that the amount of chocolate (in combo with cocoa powder) in the Double Chocolate cake is actually a lot less than in the CI cake. And, next to each other, the Double Chocolate cake definitely has an acidic finish. Not one you’d necessarily notice without having something next to it to compare it to, but it’s definitely there, and that has to be the coffee. As for the crumb, as I noted in my prior post the Double Chocolate cake definitely benefited from the reduction in baking soda. The crumb of this cake was much less crumbly than the first time I made it, and the rise was much better. But the cake the texture of the cake bordered on rubbery and I know I didn’t over-mix it. My husband said it’s almost too moist, and I would tend to agree. There was also unevenness to the crumb that in combination with the (what I would characterize as almost excessive) doming suggests to me there may still be leavening issues with this cake. As well, I’m thinking there might be too much flour. (I got one heck of a crack on the top of my 8” cake and that can be a sign of too much flour. Of course it could also just be because of its doming.) I really do like the flavor of this cake and I think the texture can be improved. I’m thinking of playing with the following: eliminating the baking powder and slightly increasing the baking soda to compensate, increasing the number of eggs and slightly reducing the coffee, eliminating the oil and increasing the butter, reducing the flour and changing to AP or a combo or AP and cake and, changing the mixing method. I wish I worked for a test kitchen and could play with all these variables all day, but alas, I do not and cannot afford that kind of luxury on my own. I’ll probably do a few of these on one or two cakes. The crumb of the CI cake was great, as everyone else that has made it has already noted. I know CI says not to change pan sizes with this cake, but they were really referring to trying to make this a sheet cake. It works beautifully in rounds. If you want to make this in two 9” rounds, my rough calculations suggest you’ll need to scale up the recipe by about 25-30%. If you want a more assertive chocolate flavor, you might try substituting coffee for the water the next time you make it to see how you like that. Taking into account taste, texture and crumb, if I were to compare these two cakes against each other to wine, I’d say the Double Chocolate Cake is a Cabernet Sauvignon and the CI cake is a Pinot Noir. Both are good, it’s really just a matter of what you’re in the mood for. I personally believe there are still some problems with the overall balance of the Double Chocolate cake recipe as far as texture and crumb, and for me, the overall experience is suboptimal because of it. I really want to try and fix that, because I love the flavor of this cake.

Yes, it's the CI Sour Cream Bundt Cake. I got a little sidetracked with other obligations, so they have both just received their crumb coat and are in the fridge. I'm using Pierre Herme's Caramel Ganache. Oh joy...

Did you make the original recipe or the Egullet-tweaked recipe? ← I made the eGullet tweaked one. I also made the CI cake for comparison. I plan on finishing both cakes off (I made multiples) this afternoon and tasting them this evening. Chocolate cake is very subjective, but I'll let you know this household's opinion after we've tried them next to each other. ← Just double-checking - The egullet tweak uses cake flour - did you use that in the Double Chocolate Cake and all-purpose in the CI cake? ← The only change I made to the eGullet tweaked recipe was the reduction in the amount of baking soda, so yes, I used cake flour. And I made the CI recipe exactly as written. Edited to add: I did change pan sizes. I made an 8", 4" and 3" with the eGullet tweaked recipe, and an 8" and a 4" with the CI recipe. There is a volume difference between the two recipes so I could not make a 3" as well with the CI recipe.

Did you make the original recipe or the Egullet-tweaked recipe? ← I made the eGullet tweaked one. I also made the CI cake for comparison. I plan on finishing both cakes off (I made multiples) this afternoon and tasting them this evening. Chocolate cake is very subjective, but I'll let you know this household's opinion after we've tried them next to each other.

For those of you who really like the Double Chocolate Cake flavor, but were unhappy with the crumb, I might suggest you repeat an experiment I did over the weekend. I suspected this recipe had too much leavener, specifically too much baking soda. So this weekend I made the cake with 1/2 the amount of baking soda: 1 teaspoon instead of two. I got much better rise and even directly out of the pan I could tell it was a better crumb. I just cut into the cake to taste it, and it confirmed that the crumb is much, much better with the reduced baking soda. And the flavor is fantastic. You might want to give this a whirl. I'm going to try some other tweaks to it this week, but I thought you might be interested in what I learned.

I would theorize that the amount of leavener, while being appropriate for a cake, is overwhelming for a cupcake. When you made your cupcakes did you see a molten center of batter "bubbles" (for lack of a better term) in the middle of each cupcake and a slight center collapse?

Truffle Guy, Have you ever tried the non coconut version with dark chocolate? If so, how would you compare the flavor profile between white and dark?

It does...thanks much. Now, I just have to find my local "rubber stamp store."

duckduck, How does one make a rubber stamp? I'm think this might be a really good way to go about making some transfer sheets for personalized chocolates I'm making for a friend's wedding favors. I've been planning on trying my own transfer sheets with screen printing (just got some titanium dioxide), but the rubber stamp sounds like it might be a simpler approach for this one-off application.

Respectfully, I disagree - sometimes you want a little gluten in your cake, it just depends on what kind of structure you want your cake to have. I've done chiffon cakes with cake flour and gotten fluffy, light cakes, and I've done chiffon cakes with AP flour and gotten firm, dense, moist cakes, and both have turned out great - but they serve different purposes for me. I gotta ask - do some people have different types of AP flour for different types of baking? For example, I use King Arthur AP for a lot of my stuff, including cakes that ask for AP, but am wondering if I should use a bleached one like Gold Medal for cakes. ← Skyflyer, That is why I said "simplistically." As pointed out in a later post (and rightfully so) flour is a complex thing. But this is "Baking 101" so I was attempting to give a rather basic view of the properties of why one would choose cake vs. AP vs. whatever else kind of flour. But to answer your question, it's definitely worth experimenting with. I do use different APs (although KA is my "go to" flour), because KA is such a high protein AP and I don't think it's always the best choice for some of the things I'm making, e.g., certain cakes and pastries. Occasionally, I'll make a batch of something with two different flours side-by-side to test the difference.

They sell it at Trader Joes, or at least at some Trader Joes...

As pointed out, all you need at home for bread is a stone. I never use convection, although I'm sure some people do. For artisanal breads, you'll never quite achieve the same crust as a bakery, but you'll still get a good loaf. Just make sure you properly preheat your stone. I usually turn my oven on to 500 degrees at least 1 1/2 hours before I plan on baking my bread as stones take a long time to come up to temperature. Everyone has a different way of dealing with humidity, but my personal view is loss of heat is one of the biggest enemies to a home bread baker. So instead of pouring water into a pan or misting, I put ice cubes into a cast iron pan set beneath my stone immediately after I've peeled my bread into the oven. It takes a little bit for the cubes to melt and gives (what I feel) is just enough humidity for the crust. (It also avoids the inevitable splatter of water that comes from pouring water into a burning hot pan.) That way I don't have to open my oven door to mist at 30 second intervals and lose heat from the oven. I'm sure others are just as happy with the way they do it, so it's really a matter of finding what works best for you. Experiment and let your own experience guide you. As for bagels...I don't make them terribly often, but I completely concur regarding finding a recipe with malt.

Excellent demo Alan! Thank you so much for sharing. I've got to say, ever since you first posted about this, I've been reading the Chocolate Alchemy site, and have been extremely tempted to try my hand at this. A couple of questions... You said that you had Mr. Nanci break and winnow your beans prior to your roasting them. Did this contribute to the amount of husk you had left after your second winnowing? i.e., if you had left them whole for roasting, would a single post-roast winnowing allowed you to remove more husk? How tricky is the timing of the roasting? Is it like nuts where you go from being "not done" to being "burnt" in just a matter of what seems like an instant? And how deep can you load your pan? I'm a little confused by your commentary on the grinding, but perhaps this is only because I do not understand how the Champion works. You indicate you keep running what comes out with the "waste" again and again. I get that. What I don't quite understand, is your comment, "the compartment will be filled with a lot of husk and only a little liquor, with not much coming out of the waste spout." Is it left in the grinding case? What is the maximum capacity you could make at one time in the Santha? You indicate the roasting of criollo is trickier. How so? Is the conching also different? Are all beans just slightly different in how they need to be processed? On a practical note...capital expenditures and your own labor costs aside, how does making your own chocolate compare price-wise? I'm sure I'll have a load of other questions, but these are what immediately spring to mind. I wish I could taste it! Many congrats on your success. btw...I took Trishiad's excellent advice on another thread and bought a vibrating table on ebay. I got exactly the same model that Chef Rubber wants to sell you for $130 for $80. Just search for "lab vibrator."

To address one question that came up...flour. The basic difference between flours is the protein content. The more protein in a flour, the more gluten you will develop. Simplistically, you want gluten development in something like bread, you don't want it something like cake. So while you can use AP when cake flour is called for (i.e., substituting a higher protein flour where a low protein is called for), you will end up with a denser, heavier product. But you cannot substitute willy-nilly. You certainly cannot use cake flour to make pain de campagne...oh, I suppose you could try...but you wouldn't. The following chart may give you non-bakers a headache, but it will give you a sense of what I'm referring to. As you can see, it's not just that there are differences between types of flours, there are also differences between brands, winter vs. summer wheat, northern vs. southern wheat, etc. But don't worry about that. Just know that on a scale, it goes from (lowest to highest protein content): cake, pastry, AP, bread. Cake (e.g., Swans Down) 7.5 to 8.5 Bleached Southern all-purpose (e.g., White Lily) 7.5 to 9.5 National brand self-rising (e.g., Gold Medal) 9 to 10 National brand bleached all-purpose (e.g., Gold Medal) 9.5 to 12 National brand unbleached all-purpose (e.g., Gold Medal) 10 to 12 Northern all-purpose (e.g., Hecker's) 11 to 12 Northern unbleached all-purpose (e.g., King Arthur) 11.7 Bread flour 11.5 to 12.5 Durum (semolina) 13 to 13.5 (From Shirley Corriher’s CookWise)

Given how much everyone has raved about these cookies I had to try them, so I made them last night. It certainly is an interesting recipe. I wasn't sure I was going to like them given how much sugar there is in them ( a full 1 1/4 cups between granulated and dark brown), as I tend to like my cookies (and all desserts for that matter) on the less sweet side. Without prompting or telling him anything about the recipe, I asked my husband (who shares similar tastes) what he thought, and he said they were very chocolatey, but sweet. I would agree. I liked them, but they are a little sweet for my taste. I think Recchiuti is right and the fleur de sel does help cut down some on the sweetness, but it is still a cookie that bends to the sweet side. Which is great for when you want that. In contrast, I tend more towards a cookie like Alice Medrich's Bittersweet Decadence which only has 1/2 cup of sugar. I know you can't really compare the two, they are very different kinds of cookies, but in terms of flavor profiles, they are kind of on the opposite ends of the sweetness scale.

Wendy, I did increase the amount of salt from what he called for in the recipe. His quantity just felt too light given the total volume. Also, grinding the fleur de sel did help some. What really made the taste come alive though was the sprinkle I put into each mold prior to filling.

Can't answer your question about the leaching...I personally would be a tad bit concerned. I use PVC and line it with acetate. He probably doesn't go this route for a) cost and b) speed, but given the carcinogens in PVC, I wouldn't risk it. Perhaps somebody else has a more definitive answer.

You cannot put them in the oven...only drawback.