Before starting Food52 with Merrill, I was a food writer and editor at the New York Times. I've written several books, including 'Cooking for Mr. Latte' and 'The Essential New York Times Cookbook.
My mother has many specialties, but her Chocolate Dump-It Cake is most beloved in my family. My mother used to do all of her baking late at night, after we were in bed. Around 1 in the morning, the aroma of this cake would begin wafting up to our bedrooms.
Then we’d watch her frost it while we ate breakfast. My mother kept this cake in the fridge, and it is sublime even when cold. I wrote about this cake in my second book,Preheat the oven to 375°F, and place a baking sheet on the lowest rack, to catch any drips when the cake bakes. Put the sugar, unsweetened chocolate, butter and 1 cup of water in a saucepan. Place over medium heat and stir occasionally until all of the ingredients are melted and blended. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Meanwhile, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, stir together the milk and vinegar. Grease and flour a 9-inch tube pan. When the chocolate in the pan has cooled a bit, whisk in the milk mixture and eggs. In several additions and without overmixing, whisk in the dry ingredients. When the mixture is smooth, add the vanilla and whisk once or twice, to blend. Pour the batter into the tube pan and bake on the middle rack until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 to 35 minutes. Let the cake cool completely, then remove from the pan and cool on a rack. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler, then let cool to room temperature. It is very important that the chocolate and sour cream be the same temperature, otherwise the icing will be lumpy or grainy. Stir in the sour cream, 1/4 cup at a time, until the mixture is smooth. Taste some! It’s good. Cut the cake into two layers. Lay the top layer, top-side-down onto a cake plate . Spread with icing. Top with the bottom layer, setting the bottom-side-up. This will give you a straighter edge . Ice the top, sides, and center. . My mother uses any leftover icing to make flowers on top. She dabs small rosettes, or buttons, on top, then uses toasted almond slices as the petals, pushing them in around the base of the rosette.Before starting Food52 with Merrill, I was a food writer and editor at the New York Times. I've written several books, including"Cooking for Mr. Latte" and"The Essential New York Times Cookbook." I played myself in"Julie & Julia" -- hope you didn't blink, or you may have missed the scene! I live in Brooklyn with my husband, Tad, and twins, Walker and Addison. I love this cake recipe. I have often made it as a layer cake and a bundt cake. My husband loves it! It freezes well, too. When I make it, I usually wrap half of it well and freeze it when I crave a piece of chocolate cake. The ganache is delicious; I am a baker, so ganache is easy for me. Sometimes, I make a chocolate drizzle without the dairy. This cake is similar to Ina Garten's Bourbon Chocolate Cake, which has a few more steps and is also delicious. I have made this cake so many times, and modified it to make the best chocolate cakes. It is my husband's favorite. This is such a great recipe and easy to put together! I would love to make a vegan recipe if you think it possible as multiple family members are vegan and I want them to enjoy this. Do you think it’s possible? I think it's possible but you'd have to make a number of adjustments and I wouldn't want to recommend them unless I tested them.I made this cake with my 6 yo today and it is moist and delicious. The sour cream's tang cuts the sweetness and gives it a lovely balance. My husband declared this a"triumph" despite us having to bake it in a bundt and it sinking a touch. We live in altitude so I am going to work on a version that accounts for those of us who are living a mile high. Even without the altitude modifications, though, this is a winner and a cloud-pleaser. Did you ever perfect this for altitude? I usually tweak by decreasing sugar and baking soda/baking powder, but I haven't tried it with this recipe yet. This initial time I made it as is and it worked . FWIW - my 8 year old still remembers this cake so I will make it again and will probably play with the sugar as you mentioned to see if it works out! This is an amazing recipe. Every time I make it my family raves. It’s easy to make, super moist and the icing is easy as well! Definitely worth trying! A new classic to pass down! Amanda, We sifted the dry ingredients, but when we added it there were clumps -- like little pockets of flour. Maybe I should have immersion blended when this happened? But because I needed it to come out well on my first try I went through the PITA of straining the cake batter in a mesh strainer. Thoughts? Sorry -- that sounds like a pain in the neck! When you add the flour and begin folding the dry ingredients into the wet, there will be lots of little flour lumps but if you continue folding, they'll go away, promise!Since your Instagram post back in 2020, I’ve made this at least 6 times. I am making this cake to take to a friend's house for dinner tonight. I made the cake yesterday using buttermilk instead of milk and vinegar. I also thought I had unsweetened chocolate, but didn't. I used Guittard unsweetened cocoa instead with grapeseed oil . I cooked the cake in two 9" pans on 350 for 30 minutes. I let the cakes cool completely before wrapping them. The cakes were very moist and smelled amazing! Everything had been going well until I started the icing today. I used half creme fraiche and half sour cream with Ghirardelli semi-sweet chips. The chips melted into a big lump of chocolate and looked dry. I was happy to watch your video to clue me in on what texture I should be looking for. I re-melted the chocolate with about 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Finally, the icing had a glossy silky texture like yours. I forgot to cut the tops of my cake to make them completely level. It's been a long time since I've made a layer cake. My cake came out a bit crooked, but overall I am pleased with the cake. If you are bad at icing a cake like I am then I recommend going with the 2 cups of chocolate chips and 2 cups of sour cream. I just barely had enough frosting to cover the cake. I can't wait to try it! I hope my friends enjoy it too. My cake sank in the middle so badly! It looks like the"too much sugar" fault if you Google. Thinking about it now, weight for weight 2 cups of sugar to 2 cups flour is pushing the boundaries for what a cake can handle, and I guess I over packed the sugar and under packed the flour. Super annoying, please just put weights for baking recipes 😭 Sorry to hear about the sinking! We don't have the resources to go back and retrofit every recipe to metric, unfortunately. I wish we could, and hope you can understand. Thanks for trying the recipe.Mel52, I use 120 grams to 1 cup for flour and 198 grams to 1 cup sugar. Alternately, you can check the nutritional information on the package as it usually provides the conversion.. I haven’t made this cake , so not sure it will work for this recipe. Amanda, It would be very much appreciated to know what your typical cup of flour, sugar… equals in grams. Hi m M. -- I used two different sets of measuring cups and 1 cup flour was 120 grams in one set and 126 grams in the other; and 1 cup sugar was 204 grams in one set and 218 grams in the other. And I measured each ingredient twice in each set. I have made this cake for my own birthday 2 years running. There is no better cake & my friends agree I should keep making my own cake :). Only change is that I use a chocolate buttercream icing. Amazing with vanilla ice cream. Thank you for this cake; I have made it many times and love it. I am wondering if there is a substitute for fresh milk as I am lately not keeping milk on hand - have you tried reconstituted powdered milk, canned evaporated, oat milk, or anything else? I love your recipes and videos. Nestle chocolate chips don’t taste like they used to…I find Trader Joe’s chocolate chips to taste just like the original Nestle product I love this recipe! I have made it many times and it’s a favourite because it isn’t sweet. I love Food52! I know each and every recipe will be great! We loved the cake which was on the denser side. But we did not enjoy the sour cream frosting. If I make the cake again, I’ll be using a traditional fudge frosting instead. Unfortunately, the “helpful” cooking videos with adds that F52 forces on patrons now made this recipe page too distracting and irritating to want to consider baking this particular cake recipe - hard pass. The cooking videos and ads are off to the side and don't interfere with the page and I just mute their sound. It's not like that for you? I often click print which opens up a different page. I don’t print the recipe, but work from that page which has zero ads. Try it! I haven't but could be fun to try. You might need to make some alterations because white chocolate is just cocoa butter and sugar and unsweetened chocolate, which the recipe calls for, is a mix of cocoa solids and cocoa butter and does not contain sugar. I might cut back the sugar in the recipe by 1/2. Not sure what the absence of cocoa solids will do to the cake but worth experimenting!
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