Wednesday lunch buddy (WLB) and I met at Black Star Pastry this week, for a change of scenery and some coffee and pastry treats (quiche for her, mini banana cake for me – delicious; loved the fresh banana bits). Talk meandered from babies who hug with their whole bodies, to men who haven’t been hugging much lately, and eventually we turned to Audrey Hepburn. Now there’s a woman who will forever remain timeless. WLB is going through an Audrey phase, watching DVD collections of her movies. Some classics are so good they bear revisiting.

That’s what I thought, when I revisted a classic with a classic. I’m sure the hard gritty rock of Guns and Roses was never intended to be sung along to, by a short, pink clad, Asian girl, while she’s creaming butter for pound cake. But there I was, with apologies to our neighbour, knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s dooooooooah!

Pound cake is one of those sturdy, buttery cakes I freely admit to craving every now and then. Good pound cake freely kisses sugar, eggs and flour and is unabashedly a butter-burst of moistness. Your teeth thank you, when you sink them into a slice.

So here I’m offering two very different riffs on the classic pound cake. Currently in Sydney we are straddling two seasons (the hot vs the cold), and it seems quite appropriate to be celebrating the glory of Spring with fava bean (or broad bean) pound cake, whilst still giving a nod to an Autumn and Winter’s past, with a damp chestnut and walnut pound cake.

The chestnut pound cake comes from Alice Medrich’s book, Pure Dessert. She recommends having a slice of this cake with a glass of sherry (and I couldn’t agree more!). I’m not including the recipe because by now, I think everyone should already own a copy of that fabulous book!

Fava Bean Pound Cakes :
(enough for six friand-sized cakes; from The Dessert Book, by Hidemi Sugino)

For the batter :
100g unsalted butter, thinly sliced, plus additional for greasing pans
150g icing sugar
180g whole eggs
70g plain flour
1.5g (1/3 tsp) baking powder
100g almond meal
60g poached fava bean puree (see below)

For the garnish :
Poached fava beans, for top and garnish
Diced almonds, for top

For the syrup :
60g fava bean poaching syrup
60g kirsch

Combine syrup ingredients; set aside. Butter baking pans.

Sift together flour, baking powder and almond meal.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine butter and sugar; process for 4 to 5 seconds. Gradually add eggs, and flour mixture, processing for 4 to 5 seconds, after each addition. Transfer to a bowl and fold in bean puree.

Pour this batter into a pastry bag without a tip and pipe evenly into buttered pans. Lightly tap pans in order to release the trapped air from the batter. Sprinkle each with almonds and 2 fava beans on top. Bake in a 170’C oven until a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Remove from pans, transfer to a wire rack, and brush syrup while warm. Garnish with poached fava beans if desired.

Poached Fava Beans :

60g granulated sugar
2/3 vanilla bean, split
150g water
150g peeled frozen fava beans

Heat sugar, vanilla and water together over high heat until sugar dissolves. Add fava beans, bring to a simmer, and cook for 1 minutes; let cool to room temperature. Transfer into an airtight container, and refrigerate overnight. To puree beans, process in a food processor or mash.

Note: If you use fresh fava beans, cook them in salted boiling water, immediately shock into cold water and peel before poaching.

Another birthday.

(Not mine! I’m not ageing that quickly. I hope.)

This one celebrates another year with a salted caramel chocolate cake. Based on Pierre Herme’s Faubourg Pave, with extra caramel shards flecked with cocoa nibs and vanilla salt, and truffles.

(Because life should get sweeter and richer, as you get older. 🙂 )

Cocoa Cake :
(enough for two Faubourg Paves; recipe for ganache here; from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme)

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (40g) Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/4 cup (35g) cake flour
3 1/2 tablespoons potato starch
5 1/2 tablespoons (75g) unsalted butter
9 large egg yolks, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups (150g) sugar
5 large egg whites, at room temperature

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 180’C. Butter two 18 x 9cm loaf pans,m then line the pans with baking paper.

Sift together the cocoa powder, cake flour, and potato starch and keep close at hand. Melt the butter and set it aside to cool until it is barely warm to the touch.

Working in a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks and 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (75g) of the sugar on medium-high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until the mixture is thick and pale, about 5 minutes. If you do not have a second mixer bowl, scrape the thickened egg yolks into a large bowl and wash and dry your mixer bowl; wash and dry the whisk attachment in any case.

Fit the mixer with the clean, dry bowl and whisk and whip the egg whites at medium speed just until they form soft peaks. Gradually add the remaining sugar and beat until the peaks are firm and shiny.

Working with a large rubber spatula and a light hand, fold the sifted dry ingredients and one-quarter of the beaten whites into the yolk mixture. Stir a few tablespoons of this mixture into the cooled melted butter, stirring to incorporate the butter as much as possible, then add the butter and the remaining whites to the yolk. Working quickly and gently, fold everything together.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans – it should come three-quarters of the way up the sides – then slide the pans into the oven. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. A slender knife inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean.

To cool the loaves, allow them to rest for 3 minutes in their pans, then gently unmold them onto cooling racks, delicately lift off the baking paper, and turn the cakes right side up to cool at room temperature.

(Welsh vanilla salt, pure vanilla extract, Lindt chocolate buttons)

I have been threatening to make this tart by Helen for months now, ever since she first posted about it. It was the novel (to me) idea of having a healthy carrot and oat crust, that attracted me to the recipe. Also, with a filling of silverbeet (she used rainbow chard in the original), eggs and a restrained hand with the parmesan grater.. how could you go wrong with that combination?

When I finally made it for our dinner the other day, my only regret was that it had taken me so long to bake this fantastic tart. The crust despite being sufficiently healthy, was very tart-like, so you weren’t left feeling as though something had been compromised in terms of not having the usual shortcrust pastry. I believe, no buttery-tart-lover having tasted this, would have felt in the least bit duped.

The filling was bound by egg, but only just so (especially since the eggs I used were smaller), without it tasting like a frittata or a quiche, which B definitely isn’t a huge fan of. In fact, the end result was so delicious and made me feel so virtuous that I even went for seconds. (Thank you for the recipe, Helen! Next on my list is that award-winning chilli of yours 😀 )

Of course, after virtuosity, comes cake.

I have made a version of Eve’s chocolate cake many times before, but this time was sorely tested by the lack of proper equipment in my kitchen at home. Despite this, the rapid disappearance of the cake once it was assembled, is evidence enough of it’s success (or our greed).

What I love about this cake, apart from it being a completely flourless and nut-free chocolate cake, with minimal amounts of butter and added sugar, is the genius of having a cake topping made from the reserved unbaked cake mixture. That’s two-for-the-price-of-one, as far as any cake-making effort is concerned! If I hadn’t known that this cake was named after Damien Pignolet’s friend Eve Knottenbelt, I would’ve concluded that this cake was so called, because of it’s simple beauty, it’s grace and purity in flavour.

Eve’s Chocolate Cake :
(from French by Damien Pignolet)

360g bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
50g soft unsalted butter
12 x 65g eggs, separated
30g caster sugar
20g caster sugar
a little grated bittersweet chocolate and cocoa, to decorate

Grease a 26-28cm springform cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 150’C.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a bain-marie of hot (not boiling) water then work in the soft butter.

Beat the egg yolks with the 30g of sugar until pale. Combine them with the melted chocolate and butter.

Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry (preferably in a copper bowl with a wire whisk), and then beat in the 20g of sugar until stiff.

Beat 1/4 of the egg-white mixture into the chocolate and then fold this gently but thoroughly back into the remaining egg-white mixture.

Transfer 1/4 of the cake mixture into a bowl and refrigerate. Pour the balance of the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 30-40 minutes. It should remain slightly moist in the centre; to test, press the centre with your finger after 30 minutes – it should hold the indentation.

Remove from the oven and turn out directly onto a serving platter. Remove the springform ring and base. Leave to cool completely. The cake will collapse to leave a crater in the centre. Fill the crater with the reserved mixture and scatter with the chocolate. Dust lightly with cocoa and serve with whipped cream.

[Note : Eve’s chocolate cake is my submission to Lorraine’s Chocolate Cake challenge. I’m afraid I don’t have a “best ever” chocolate cake recipe, as my ultimate cake varies from day to day, but this one is definitely up there. 🙂 ]