Extra-Chocolatey Chocolate Birthday Pound Cake

Now is the season for birthday cakes to start happening almost weekly, each one different, to suit the tastes of the honoree. To start it all off, we got a singularly decadent chocolate pound cake, built around a half pound of rich dark (85% cacao) chocolate from Aldi, and then piled high with a cocoa glaze, drizzled with some thick white chocolate ganache, served with Tillamook vanilla bean ice cream and more dark chocolate ganache (for those who wanted to go to indecent excess).

The original recipe was published in the 1968 edition of Charlotte Erickson's The Freezer Cookbook, which The Bat has been using and abusing (especially for the pound cake recipe) lo, these past 53 years. That recipe, however, calls for sweet cooking chocolate (a.k.a. German chocolate), which, ultimately, makes a less deeply chocolate batter, as it's only 45% cacao.

I misbehave, of course. 

And the over-the-top, chaotic melange of chocolates is  difficult to walk away from. I dare you.

Extra-Chocolatey Chocolate Birthday Pound Cake

Ingredients:
8 ounces extra-dark chocolate, melted slowly in top of double boiler or microwave, stirred well, and allowed to cool to near room temperature

1 cup butter

1/4 cup cooking oil (I use canola)

2 1/2 cups sugar

5 unbeaten eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup heavy or whipping cream

1/3 cup milk

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions: 
 
Preheat oven to 300º F.

Coat 1 tube pan or 2 loaf pans with grease or butter and line bottom with parchment (you might also wish to dust the sides of the pan with a small amount of cocoa powder, if you find it handy).

In the large bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter and oil, and mix well, until completely softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy (this will take a long time – as much as 10 to 15 minutes at high speed). Don't shortchange this step, or you may get a bottom-heavy cake.

Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one.

Stir in cooled chocolate, vanilla, baking powder and salt, beating well. 

Combine milk and cream, then pour into batter in small portions (about 1/4 cup at a time), alternating with flour, and mixing well after each addition until batter is smooth.

Pour into pan(s), and bake at 300º F for 90 minutes (an hour and a half). Test center of cake with toothpick or cake tester – if it comes out clean, remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for at least 15 minutes, then loosen sides of cake with thin knife. Remove from pan and allow to completely cool.

May be served plain, glazed, frosted, or sprinkled with powdered or decorative sugar.

I started with a basic doughnut glaze

Simple, Hardening Cocoa Powder Glaze (for Doughnuts of Any Size)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 cups confectioner's (powdered) sugar
1/4 cup very hot water (you may wish to add more, or less depending on how fluid you want your glaze)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Sift together your cocoa powder and confectioner's sugar. Add in vanilla and 3 Tablespoons nearly-boiling water, stir well. Add more water until the glaze reaches desired consistency. 

 before topping mine with a simple white chocolate ganache: place 8 ounces of good white chocolate bits and 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream into the microwave on half power for 2 minutes, and then stir well until the morsels are completely melted and the ganache is creamy enough to put into a zippered or piping bag for squidging out & glooping all over the cake. Or neatly decorating, if you're that sort of person.

This is killing my diet, though.