Comments on: Sin, Quantified

By: rdlobel

rdlobel — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 23:47:43 +0000

The butter and the heavy cream is the secret to making it sinful. My fiance is a gormet chef and swears by that. And she hasn’t made a bad dish yet!

By: Chocolates

Chocolates — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:19:49 +0000

Looks really like an amazing chocolate pleasure.
I’m going to try that one for sure !

By: mrs D

mrs D — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:13:55 +0000

Wojo, Chopper bakes this cake on a regular basis for restaurant patrons so I can assure you that the butter amount does ring true. That entire cake-base recipe (with the half ounce of butter) is simply a half-inch layer at the very bottom of the cake you see in the photos.

As I said above, weight measurements are how the pro bakers do it, and these recipes are adapted from a professional baking book.

Baking is more of a science than an art, and the use of weight as a measurement rather than volume leads to far more accurate and consistant results, and it serves to mitigate random factors such as humidity and altitude that could otherwise adversely affect your product.

There are websites and books that will help you convert weight to volume, but you’ll get better results if you stick to the pro recipe and pick up a kitchen scale. The one we use is a Salter 5-pound Microtronic, and it serves us well.

By: wojo

wojo — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:23:17 +0000

Someone’s gotta help me with these “ounces”! An ounce and a half of confectioner’s sugar?? 1/2 ounce flour? Can some please translate these to cups or tablespoons? And a half ounce of butter–there are 16 ounces in a pound, a stick of butter is 4 ounces, or 8 tablespoons–so we’re talking very little butter–doesn’t ring true–

By: Ore

Ore — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 22:31:47 +0000

That cake looks amazing -

Ore

By: mrs D

mrs D — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 16:06:22 +0000

Hey Kent,

Good question!

::puts on geeky chef-wife hat::

The recipes above are adapted from a professional baking book, and that’s pretty much the way pro bakers do it: by weight rather than amount. Thus the term “Pound Cake” which comes not from anything being pounded (heh), but rather from the pound amounts of its main ingredients.

Since eggs come in so many sizes, many bakers prefer to use a kitchen scale to get their accurate amounts rather than go by number of eggs. Three jumbo eggs will be quite different from 3 regular eggs, and even within those categories, there’ll be slight differences from egg to egg or from farm to farm.

Your “average” small egg weighs about an ounce and a half, so if you don’t have a kitchen scale and need to convert measurements, you can work it out that way. Here’s more on egg weights.

By: kent

kent — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 15:39:20 +0000

So, how many eggs are in an ounce?! What kind of crazy measurement is that?

By: Nic

Nic — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 12:10:29 +0000

Good lord. That cake is too much - of perhaps just enough. It looks fantastic.

By: mrs D

mrs D — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 21:15:12 +0000

Oh, you crazy, sinful kids, you.

Yes, CC. Heavy cream. Much sadness.

By: Barbara (Biscuit Girl)

Barbara (Biscuit Girl) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:57:32 +0000

I just about licked my computer screen. If sinning is wrong, I don’t want to be good.