How are you doing?

I find that everyone is asking that question these days, not as a careless courtesy but more sincerely. How are we all doing? Based on my social circle and what I read on Twitter, we are all wanting to be hopeful and desperately looking for leadership. Meanwhile, we are Zooming our social lives and getting very into sourdough.

In San Francisco, we have been in social distance mode for over a month now, and I’m finding my emotional state moving day to day along a spectrum between acceptance and something approaching depression. Every benefit of this new existence seems to have a counterweight to it: going outside for fresh air and sunshine lifts my mood, but just leaving my front door feels fraught. Walking across this city is my very favorite thing, now it invites uncertainty that I’m risking my health. Skipping a morning commute gains more time, but if I spend that extra time sleeping I’m just groggy and lethargic all day. And so on.

There are distractions, though. I haven’t been watching much TV the past few weeks, but I’ve been reading a lot. I’m finishing up the fantasy epic of The Wheel of Time and finding its fictional world an odd source of perspective. My own world may have shrunk to the confines of my apartment, but I’m not going insane from using my magical powers or battling the Forsaken. Things could be worse!

Many of us also are escaping into our kitchens, if only out of necessity, but also for comfort and maybe a feeling of just doing something, anything of use. We can feed our loved ones or at least see through an activity with a known outcome. Nothing is certain, yet everything is certain. Add yeast or your new starter to flour, and it will rise. Chocolate and sugar warm from the oven will please everyone and make your house at least smell like nothing is wrong.

So we bake.

I’ve baked cookies, banana bread, and cornbread, but I’ve also made two cakes in the last month. For one thing, I’m not going anywhere, so I have the time. For another thing, the process of baking and building a layer cake is a baking project that reliably provides true distraction. Cake layers must be mixed, baked, and cooled. Frosting must be made. Garnishes decided upon and gathered or made. Then, the assembly: stacking layers, spreading frosting, chilling the stacked layers, spreading more frosting, smoothing, smoothing, smoothing, piping more frosting, adding garnish. Truly, a cake can keep you company for an entire weekend.

This particular cake was born from boredom and my ever expanding, dreamed up list of cake flavors. I wanted to try making chocolate mint leaves. I wanted to try mixing caramelized white chocolate into buttercream. I hadn’t piped buttercream roses in two years. I was just craving some chocolate cake.

There was just one, wee, small problem. I was out of a few baking essentials, including flour and sugar. So, I went to the store, where they were also out of flour and sugar, not to mention baking chocolate and vanilla. I came home, figuring I’d wing it with some self-rising flour and whatever sweetener and chocolate I could scrounge up. A search for sugar in my disorganized closets and cupboards led me to a wonderful discovery! I had actually, kind of a lot of coconut sugar in the pantry from a brief flirtation with “healthy” sugars in 2015, half a bag of cake flour in the freezer, one entire bar of unsweetened baking chocolate, and oh yeah, a massive bottle of imitation vanilla extract from my funfetti adventures.

This, my friends, is how you clean out your closets!

I assembled my hodgepodge ingredients together and hoped for the best. And it worked! The cake was rich and chocolatey, the frosting sweet with the bitter depth of caramel, and most of the mint peeled off the hardened chocolate. My finished product, while not winning any prizes for my piping skills, was successful enough that I wasn’t embarrassed to take photos of it.

Me: 1

Quarantine: ok, more than 1 but who’s counting anymore?

Chocolate Cake with Caramelized White Chocolate Buttercream

Chocolate cake adapted from The New York Times (the recipe is also on Food52 if you don’t have a subscription) and buttercream adapted from Cupcake Jemma (if you enjoy baking and haven’t yet discovered this YouTube channel, I highly recommend it).

For the cake (I’ve included original ingredients & my substitutions):

• 2 cups sugar (or coconut sugar)

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate ( I didn’t have exactly 4 ounces and topped off with some semi-sweet chocolate)

• 1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan (or cake flour)

• 2 teaspoons baking soda

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 cup milk

• 1 teaspoon cider vinegar

• 2 eggs

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (real or imitation)

For the buttercream and the chocolate mint leaves (optional):

• 250g white chocolate - (at least 28% cocoa solids, don’t sub with low-quality white chocolate chips, it won’t work!)

• 3 egg whites

• 225g sugar (I used turbinado, which was nice with the white chocolate but may not dissolve completely)

• 200g unsalted butter, room temp

• 2 oz semi-sweet chocolate

• fresh mint leaves

1. Make the cake layers: Pre-heat oven to 375, and butter and flour two, 6-inch cake pans and set aside. In a pot over medium heat, add the sugar, chocolate, and butter, add 1 cup of water and stir sometimes until everything is melted and mixed together smoothly. Remove from the heat.

2. While chocolate mixture cools slightly, mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl and the milk and vinegar in another. When the chocolate has cooled enough (after about 5 minutes) stir in the milk mixture until fully combined, then add the eggs, mixing well to fully combine. Then, add the flour in three batches, stir to combine, then add the vanilla. Be careful not to overmix the matter, you should only need to stir until the flour just disappears. Divide the batter between the two prepared pans and bake, checking after 25 minutes with a skewer or toothpick inserted into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s done!

3. Let the cakes cool for 5 minutes in the pans, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. While cakes are cooling, make the frosting: add the white chocolate to a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. The white chocolate should be completely melted or almost so. Stir to loosen. Continue microwaving in 15 second increments, until the chocolate turns a golden tan color and smells like caramel, about 5 minutes total (it may take longer or less time depending on your microwave). Stir well in between each round, the chocolate might look grainy or separated, but stirring should bring it all back together just fine.

4. Set the chocolate aside to cool and make the frosting base. In the bowl of a stand mixer set over simmering water, add the egg whites and the sugar and stir to combine. Keep stirring, until the sugar is dissolved (or mostly dissolved if you are using turbinado) and the mixture is almost too hot to touch. Transfer the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk on high speed until fluffy and the bowl is cool to the touch (or at least room temp), about 5 minutes. Slowly add the butter, about a tablespoon at a time, with the mixer on medium speed, until the butter is fully incorporated and you have a fluffy, silky frosting. If the mixture turns soupy, just keep whipping! It will firm up. Once your chocolate has cooled enough that it won’t melt the butter in the frosting (it should still be melted but not very warm), whip it into the frosting until well-combined.

5. Assemble the cake! Trim the tops of your cake layers if they are domed so that you can stack the cakes evenly together. Spread a thin layer of frosting on the first layer, then stack the second layer and coat the entire cake with a thin layer of frosting, smoothing off the excess. Chill the cake for 20-30 minutes in the fridge to set the crumb coat, then frost with remaining frosting as you like. There will be enough frosting for fully covering the cake plus piping decorations.

6. If you are making mint leaves, melt the semi-sweet chocolate in 15-second increments in the microwave until you can stir it into a smooth, melted consistency. Using a clean paintbrush, thickly coat the back of the mint leaves with chocolate and lay flat to set or drape on the handle of a wooden spoon. Pop in the fridge to set completely, then carefully peel off the mint leaves to reveal your chocolate leaves! You will want to use more chocolate than you think, if they are too thin they will break easily when you try to detach the mint. Decorate with your chocolate leaves as you wish!

Notes:

• DO NOT attempt to sample the caramelized white chocolate when it comes out of the microwave. I shouldn’t have to warn you, but it will smell incredible, so don’t be tempted! That chocolate is molten.

• You can make the frosting ahead of time and chill it, well covered, in the fridge. Just bring it back to room temperature and rewhip a bit. However, since there is cooled chocolate in the frosting, you may not get it back fully to the original texture or color. You can see this in the photos above. I piped the frosting roses immediately after making the frosting and froze them, and then frosted the cake the next day. It worked out and I liked the color contrast, but the texture definitely suffered a bit.

• The frosting recipe is in grams, because Jemma is British, and I didn’t measure the cups equivalent when baking, sorry! But really, why aren’t you baking with a scale??