Chocolate dump-cake derby puts divas' recipes to the test

Thursday, April 20, 2006

A chocolate "dump" cake promises joy in an hour. Also known as a one-bowl cake, the procedure lets you plop all the ingredients into one mixing bowl, give them an unceremonious twirl and scrape the batter into the baking pan. An extreme version skips all gewgaws and is mixed with a wooden spoon in the pan it bakes in.

	Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette Chefs, from left: Lisa Romanowski (with Martha Stewart's and Amanda Hesser's cakes), Candace Uricchio (Shirley Corriher's cake), Andrea Schrenk (Nigella Lawson's cake), and Romina Peixoto (Whole Foods). Click photo for larger image. More Dump Cake recipes

Various food-empire divas are pleased to put their names on streamlined cakes like that. The question is: Are the cakes any good? If yes, which is best?

To find out, we lined up four food-empire divas for a Dump-Cake Derby.

Going head to head are recipes offered by Food Empress Martha Stewart, Food Goddess Nigella Lawson, Food Wunderkind Amanda Hesser and Food Scientist Shirley Corriher -- all megastars with food network and cookbook reputations on the line. (We even threw in a flourless cake for gluten-avoiders.)

We persuaded a panel of Pittsburgh's own divas, pastry chefs all, to bake the celebrity cakes in their professional kitchens and then to bring them to a group tasting session to dish about them for our readers.

We assigned the cakes more or less randomly.

Meet the bakers

Candace Uricchio, Pastries by Candace, has supplied Pittsburgh weddings and special occasions with legendary cakes for over a decade. Mother of three, the youngest age 3, she and her husband, Michael (brother of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Seen columnist Marylynn Uricchio), own Laforet, the Highland Park restaurant. Candace often comes in to the Laforet kitchen at midnight and bakes all night, getting home in time to get her three kids off to school. Laforet hosted the tasting. (Shirley Corriher Crazy Cake, Hershey's Black Magic cake)

Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette The Martha Stewart Cake sports a herringbone pattern on top. Click photo for larger image.

Andrea Carros-Schrenk has been an award-winning pastry instructor at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Culinary Institute for 20 years. She trained at Johnson & Wales University and worked in Providence, R.I., Washington D.C., and Pittsburgh's fabled La Normande/The Wine Restaurant. Her days start at 4:30 a.m. in order to teach at 6:30 a.m. She and her husband, Jim, are raising three boys, the youngest age 10, in Bellevue. (Nigella Lawson cake)

Romina Peixoto is pastry chef at Eleven, the sophisticated flagship restaurant of the bigBurrito Group in the Strip District, where a hot item is her blue cheese ice cream. She trained in her native Buenos Aires and worked in Hawaii and New Orleans before coming to Pittsburgh with her boyfriend, Matt Glick, director of Mad Mex's kitchen operations for bigBurrito. Romina is usually on duty from 10 a.m. to past midnight, seven days a week. (Whole Foods Market cake)

Lisa Romanowski is a pastry chef at Six Penn Kitchen in the Cultural District. The restaurant, an upscale venture of Eat 'n Park Restaurants, opened less than a year ago. Lisa arrives at 6:30 a.m. to open Six Penn's in-house pastry shop. Pastry chef Amanda Williams works the evening shift. Amanda was to bake a dump cake, too, but circumstances intervened and Lisa ended up baking both entries. Lisa will need a cake of her own for her September wedding to Jeff O'Connor of Green Tree. (Amanda Hesser cake, Martha Stewart cake)

The race begins

Photos first. The wisecracking bakers, rosy confections themselves in baseball caps -- except for Andrea Carros-Schrenk's crisp instructor's toque -- display their cakes like seventh-grade science experiments.

	Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette Amanda Hesser's Chocolate Dump-It Cake was made by Lisa Romanowski of Six Penn Kitchen. Click photo for larger image.

Cakes are cut. Each taster faces a white dinner plate studded with wedges and squares.

First out of the gate is Amanda Hesser's "Chocolate Dump-It Cake," a lushly frosted tube cake, baked by Lisa Romanowski. The recipe was a treasured one from Hesser's mother.

The cake is moist and dense, but to Andrea's taste, the sour cream icing is "too tangy." Heads nod. "I don't like the icing," says Romina Peixoto. "If you were into goat cheese, you might like it," says Andrea. "It's cheesecakey," says Candace Uricchio. "The [cake and icing] flavors don't come together. Very heavy [cake]. Kinda gummy."

Next. Nigella Lawson, you are in for a scolding. Your cake is lighter and tastes pretty good, but where did you go to school?

Andrea teaches this stuff for a living and sees glitches for home bakers: "using a food processor to mix a batter involving cocoa. The dry ingredients must be presifted, unless you want the cocoa to clump.

Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette Chef Andrea Schrenk adorned Nigella Lawson's cake with striped pirouettes. Click photo for larger image.

"And that butter had better be very soft, or you'll end up with a lumpy muffin dough. Also, ³/₈ cup of sour cream is ridiculous. No one can measure that."

Andrea rewrote the recipe, switching the butter to oil and upping the sour cream. This version the chefs liked better, though Romina would like to keep the butter flavor. She suggests melting it to make it combine better.

Andrea is not pleased with the icing. "It's a little hard, a little grainy. It needs tweaking."

Andrea's cake-topper -- a teepee of her own striped pirouette cookies -- is festive enough to distract anyone from minor flaws in the cake. "You can do it yourself," she suggests, "with Pepperidge Farms pirouettes from the supermarket."

Martha Stewart comes into view.

Lisa made this cake, too. She has sat through the assault on the Hesser cake. Will Martha Stewart let her down? Not if appearances count. This towering triple-decker is the derby showstopper. Lisa frosted it with a vanilla butter cream icing, then, with chocolate ganache, created a smashing herringbone pattern on top. (You can do it with squeeze-bottle chocolate syrup, see "Tricks.")

No one dumps on Martha Stewart's cake. Andrea notes the cake's appealing texture. The chefs say buttermilk played a role in that. They agree that milk soured with vinegar -- often suggested as a substitute -- doesn't work as well.

Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette Martha Stewart's cake has three layers. Click photo for larger image.

Coming up on the inside, Shirley Corriher.

Candace, whose credentials rest on a city-full of stellar cakes, brings on the humble 8-inch square, grinning.

This is the Corriher's "Moist Chocolate Crazy Cake," mixed and baked in its pan, unfrosted. "You can mix it in the pan, but it really is easier [to make it] in a mixing bowl and pour it into the pan."

In Candace's other hand is a bowl of chocolate buttercream. "Serve a spoonful beside it," she offers.

There is no sniping about this springy cake. It's chocolaty. Andrea: "For an eggless cake, it's moist."

Candace: "It is, but I think I have a better one."

With that she produces a dark horse -- Hershey's "Black Magic Cake," also baked unadorned in its pan. The recipe has been knocking around home kitchens since God was a boy. "It's similar to the Martha Stewart cake," Candace suggests.

"The Martha Stewart is probably a knock-off of it," Andrea surmises. This cake gets broad approval too.

We have one more cake -- the Whole Foods "Organic Flourless One-Bowl Cake." Romina baked it but she is not going to go to bat for it.

"I don't like it at all," the Argentinian says. It didn't help that on her fly-by to Whole Foods for recipe ingredients, the organic bittersweet chocolate was not available. She substituted what she had, an extremely intense 70 percent Scharffen Berger (compare to Nestle's 43 percent), knowing it would be bitter.

The chefs get into a rat-a-tat-tat about nuances of chocolate.

Bottom line? Candace: "Let the chocolate suit the cake style." In other words, don't worry about it. It's agreed that Hershey's, Nestle's and Callebaut are "available, affordable, easy to work with" and their bittersweet versions are not too intense.

We taste the one-layer with its glossy glaze. Puckery. But serve a sliver ... with whipped cream? This cake could have fans. Make it with a friendlier bittersweet, many fans.

Wham factor

Candace: "We're hypercritical! I don't think my sons would have a problem with Nigella's cake! These are home-style cakes. You could make the Corriher Crazy Cake in an hour."

Andrea: "And it's moist enough you could use it two days later."

Two cents' worth from Six Penn Kitchen's executive chef Chris Jackson, who chauffeured Lisa and her two cakes to the tasting: "They'd disappear! You put 'em, any of 'em, down on the counter and WHAM!"

Runners-up

For its dense texture and ultra-intense chocolate, the Whole Foods cake receives the Adult Content citation. Best to make it with a milder bittersweet.

That tangy sour-cream icing in Amanda Hesser's cake raised a ruckus, but it is A Mother's Recipe, so it gets an honorable mention.

If Candace's boys, 8 and 11, would like the Nigella cake, probably most people would. So it gets the Mikey Likes It award.

Winners circle

The Crazy Cake, Martha's three-decker and the Hershey's Black Magic all get ribbons because the chefs think they best fulfilled the inglorious dump-cake profile:

Ingredients: few and likely to be on hand.

Technique: simple

Tools, bowls, pans: few.

Results: foolproof and tasty.

Looks: optional.

Need a cake-in-an-hour? Corriher's Crazy Cake is for you. Serve with ice cream if you want to get fancy.

Got an hour and a half? Bake the Black Magic in two round layers. Make a fast buttercream frosting while it bakes.

Need a big, fat, sexy cake? Martha Stewart's three-decker takes Best of Show.

Tricks

To make the fancy pattern on Martha Stewart cake, Lisa suggests using a squeeze-bottle chocolate syrup to pipe lines one-half inch apart across the frosted cake top. Or just zig-zag the syrup across the cake top and then draw a knife blade lightly through the syrup stripes.

Chocolate shavings: Pat on the cake sides (or all over). Make by shaving block chocolate with a knife or peeler.

Whipped cream: Fill and frost with cocoa-flavored, sweetened whipped cream.

Mini-chocolate chips: Pat all over cake.

Cake-top decoration: Form a teepee with supermarket pirouette cookies.

Shake on confectioners' sugar and serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Handicapping the cakes

Shirley Corriher's Moist Chocolate Crazy Cake: The minimalist. Non-stick pan. Stir the few ingredients in the baking pan. Cocoa and oil mean no melting chocolate or butter. No eggs. No odd ingredients. Frosting not required.

Hershey Kitchen's Black Magic Cake (Uricchio's dark horse): Cocoa, oil, buttermilk, so no melting chocolate or butter. Preparation similar to the Martha Stewart. 13- by 9- by 2-inch pan or two 9-inch layers. Frosting as above.

Martha Stewart's One-Bowl Three-Layer Chocolate Cake: Oil and cocoa, so no melting. Requires buttermilk. Baked in three pans. Requires frosting.

Whole Foods Market One-Bowl Flourless Cake with Dark Chocolate Glaze: Chocolate and butter to melt. One baking pan. Fast glaze. Organic ingredients involve a trek.

Nigella Lawson's All-in-One Chocolate Cake: Mixed in a food processor. Chefs thought dry ingredients should be sifted and butter should be very soft to combine properly. Requires corn syrup and sour cream. Two pans. Requires frosting.

Amanda Hesser's Chocolate Dump-It Cake: Most ingredients, steps, containers, implements.

Moist Chocolate Crazy Cake

PG Tested

• 1 1/2 cups bleached all-purpose flour
  
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
  
• 1/3 cup natural, not Dutch-processed, cocoa
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
  
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  
• 1 cup cold water or coffee
  

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In an 8- by 8- by 2-inch nonstick pan, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Poke three holes in ingredients with handle of a wooden spoon. Pour oil into one hole. Do not mind if it overflows. Spoon vinegar into second hole and the vanilla into last. Pour cold water over the top and stir ingredients until smooth.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Place the pan on a rack to cool. Serve from the pan. Serves 8.

Shirley Corriher

One-Bowl Chocolate Cake

PG Tested

Makes 2 8-inch square or 3 8-inch round layers.

• Unsalted butter, for pans
  
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for pans
  
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 3 cups sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  
• 3 large eggs
  
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
  
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
  
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter round or square cake pans, and line bottoms with parchment; butter parchment, and dust with cocoa.

Into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, sift cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. With the mixer on low, stir in eggs, 1¹/₂ cups warm water, buttermilk, vegetable oil and vanilla until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Divide batter among prepared pans. Bake, rotating once, until tester inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes for 8-inch layers, depending on amount of batter.

Let cakes cool in pans on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely, right side up on rack.

Serves 10 to 12.

Martha Stewart

Lisa's Simple Buttercream Icing (for Martha Stewart Cake)

PG Tested

This makes enough for three 9-inch layers. Be sure to beat the icing for the amount of time called for in the recipe to achieve the desired creamy texture.

4 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

• 4 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
  
• 1 cup Crisco
  
• 2 pounds confectioners' sugar, sifted
  
• 1 cup milk
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
  

Place butter and Crisco in a large mixing bowl. On medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy. Add sugar and mix to combine and continue mixing on medium speed about 3 minutes so it becomes light and fluffy. Then add milk, vanilla and almond flavoring. Mix on low to incorporate the ingredients and then continue beating on medium to high speed for about 5 minutes or until icing is fluffy and soft. (Use and store the icing at room temperature because icing will set if chilled.) Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Lisa Romanowski

Hershey's Black Magic Cake

PG Tested

• 2 cups sugar
  
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 3/4 cup Hershey's cocoa
  
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
  
• 1 cup strong black coffee OR 2 teaspoons powdered instant coffee plus 1 cup boiling water
  
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans or one 13- by 9- by 2-inch baking pan.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes (batter will be thin). Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes for round pans, 35 to 40 minutes for rectangular pan or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost as desired.

Yields 10 to 12 servings.

To sour milk: Use 1 tablespoon white vinegar plus milk to equal 1 cup.

(Virginia Phillips is a Mt. Lebanon freelance food writer. )