July 18, 2012 - 12:59pm
Marcel Desaulnier's Old-Fashioned Speckled Chocolate Cake
I found this when going through some old files on my computer: (pdf file) Marcel Desaulnier's Old-Fashioned Speckled Chocolate Cake.pdf
My sister was convinced she couldn't bake a cake from scratch, so I created a 'process document' from a recipe in Marcel Desaulniers' Death by Chocolate, The Last Word on a Consuming Passion.
It's probably the nuttiest document in my arsenal!
Enjoy, if just for laughs.
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cake if there ever was one! Nice baking for sure. Can't wait to make this fine looking cake. But first you have to tell us what to do besides melt the butter and serve :-) There must be more even though I really like butter a lot. Will check the PDF to see what it says. Seems the PDF file is complete and you could make a cake from it.
Thanks for the recipe and nice baking!
I chose the easiest cake in the book because I didn't want to scare my sister too much.
But it's only 128 steps!
It's a good, but not great cake.
I'm tempted to say that a box chocolate cake + canister of frosting betters it, but t'would be blasphemous.
I bet someone of your skill could crank out one of his really phenomenal cakes at the end of the book, like the Chocolate Damnation.
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I formatted the shopping list in a way that might confuse people. I list quantities that you find "in the store", not in the recipe. The recipe quantities are in the second "Mise en place" list. I did it that way to streamline the "Do I have this item already? How much? OK, I don't have enough. Buy more. How does one buy it in the store? One does not buy 10 tablespoons of butter, one buys a pound." process.
The upshot of this list is how quickly you can fill it in the market. The time spent in the market (and getting to/from) being the most expensive ingredient in any recipe, I tried to answer the question, "How to go/come as fast as possible without forgetting something."
Strangely enough, some guy emailed me asking for permission "to present it" at an conference for process engineering. I looked up the conference and guess where it was hosted? Oxford University. Ain't that fancy!
Alas, no one not from Oxford seems to understand why I did it that way. That ain't so fancy.
get those speckles with a box cake but I'm not sure you need 128 steps to get them either. I'm guessing that you and I, without apprentices, could get it down to say 114 steps and still get a speckly cake that would probably taste better if two of them were buy a chocolate cake mix and follow the instructions on the box through the mixing stage :-) My apprentice thinks that together we are just barely good enough at bakng to do a 12 step cake and that cake would have to have 3 steps near the middle of drink beer, chase with lots of bourbon and then chase cars. I personally could use some damnation around here now and again just to keep the apprentice hopping on all 4 paws like there was hellfire under them :-)
I saw him on Julia Child and he seemed fairly normal - who knew he might need a cake intervention :-)
What a beautiful cake. I am impressed as I would get overwhelmed simply looking at the recipe! Head screams CAKE MIX :-)
Between you and dabrownman's brownie cake these blogs are are off limits for my kids eyes!
Thanks for sharing!
Janet
That reminds me of something I saw just a couple of days ago.
I was looking for a slice of cake at Whole Foods and found these items right next to the cake: box of cake mix, eggs, oil, butter, 2 containers of frosting, etc.
It's like someone saw the pre-made cakes and decided, "I am so not baking a cake when I can just buy it."
Thanks,
Thomas
:-)
Feel free to send a piece of that cake over my way!
My wife has most of his books but I don't think she tried this recipe.
I have forbidden her from making a box mix so she will have to try this one for sure.
Ian
You should have her make either the Chocolate Phantasmagoria or the Chocolate Transportation from this book.
Only needs about $50 of dark chocolate each. :)
That's not an issue! My waste line on the other hand.......
We have a spare bedroom we turned into a cooking storage room. She has 1 side of the room for all her choclates, decorating stuff, etc. and the other half is all the pans, flour, etc.
Chocolate is something you can never have enough of :)
are one of the 7 basic food groups with BBQ and Smoked Meats, Ice Cream and other cold deserts, Bread & Pizza & Pasta and Pastry, Beer& Bourbon & Wine and other spirits, Cakes & Pies and Fruits and Veggies. My food groups stay at 7 (not really since they were once 6) but they become more encompassing over time. They are of course subject to change with further additions :-)
I second the motion!