Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Carrément Chocolat, The Simple Loaf

February 25, 2020 at 8:38 pm | Posted in BCM, cakes & tortes, groups, simple cakes, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 9 Comments
Tags: baking, cake, chocolate

This Carrément Chocolat cake has a fancy French name but it’s just a “simple loaf.” Actually, it’s an outstanding chocolate-chocolate chip loaf. Why did we wait so long to bake this? Why did I only make a little half-recipe cake? Life’s regrets…

The cake batter is basically whizzed up in stages in the food processor, so that is simple. There’s a bit of prep to take care of first though, and that’s to make a batch of salted chocolate to chop up for chips that get mixed into the batter. This is just as it sounds: melted dark chocolate with sea salt mixed in (you can take a shortcut and buy a couple of nice sea salted dark chocolate bars at the store instead). Dorie says to spread the chocolate out and freeze it hard before chopping. Frozen chocolate is a shardy mess to chop up, so I’d recommend setting it up in the fridge instead. I actually tempered my chocolate, which I’m used to doing at work, and let it harden at room temperature so it cut fairly easily into neat chips.

As I said, I regrettably made only a half-recipe of this cake, but it sounds as though the full batch may be a bit too much for the 8.5×4.5-inch loaf pan called for. Either using a 9×5-inch pan instead or scaling back to 3/4-recipe for an 8.5×4.5-inch tin is something to consider.

I tried to layer the cake batter and salted chocolate chips in my loaf pan to keep the chips from sinking, but they headed right to the bottom anyway. (I would recommend lining your loaf pan with parchment for this reason.) Oh well, that made for a nice little black bottom-style surprise treat. The baked loaf gets brushed with a sugar syrup to help keep it moist. I added espresso powder to my syrup to give it some flavor, but I almost went with rum. I will save that idea for next time.

For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

9 Comments »

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This really is a complex simple loaf, isn’t it? I need to make it again soon (and try to figure out how to NOT let the chocolate sink!).

Comment by Mardi (eat. live. travel. write.)— February 26, 2020 #

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Thanks for your helpful hints ! Who did you ended up enjoying it?

Comment by attemptingeternallygratitude— February 26, 2020 #

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- it’s really good!!
  
  Comment by steph (whisk/spoon)— February 26, 2020 #
  
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Love the coffee and rum idea. Putting the chocolate pieces on top, maybe they wouldn’t sink all the way to the bottom? This was great with ice cream.

Comment by Diane Zwang— February 26, 2020 #

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- good idea…will try that next time!
  
  Comment by isthisakeeper— February 28, 2020 #
  
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  - so will i…maybe they’ll only make it halfway 🙂
    
    Comment by steph (whisk/spoon)— February 28, 2020 #
The parchment liner is a great idea…I lost some chocolate pieces to the bottom of the loaf pan.

Comment by Zosia— February 26, 2020 #

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Espresso powder in the syrup?! BRILLIANT! This cake doesn’t need anything extra, but espresso powder would make it next level amazing.

Comment by Type & Cakes— February 28, 2020 #

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Chocolatey goodness…whats not to like 🙂

Comment by isthisakeeper— February 28, 2020 #

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