Chocolate Loaf Cake for Emotional Times @LucyBurdette

 

LUCY BURDETTE: It's been a challenging time, starting with weeks of severe election anxiety. Whether or not you got exactly what you wanted, we've all been on an emotional roller coaster and I thought we deserved a cake to celebrate surviving!

This cake will be featured in A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS coming next August. The Scottish Scone Sisters are hosting the first leg of a baking contest in Key West, and one of the challenges is a loaf cake. This recipe is one of the entries.

This is a great cake if you don’t have the motivation to make a layer cake (I didn’t!) but want to serve a nice dessert. You could frost it with chocolate icing, and the chocoholics in your company would applaud you. I like chocolate, but I also like vanilla and this checked both boxes.

I read recipes from Pastry and Beyond and King Arthur Flour and came up with this combination. It’s quite sweet enough for dessert (my hub thought ice cream was a good addition,) but it also could be a tea cake or even something eaten for breakfast. (That could be a stretch, except perhaps for our Jenn.) As suggested by the Pastry and Beyond blog, it is not necessary to use a mixer. A whisk does the job perfectly well.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1 tsp espresso powder, optional
• ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
•  ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
• ½ cup milk, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• ¼ cup boiling water

Ingredients for the vanilla glaze:

3/4 cup sifted confectioner's sugar

2 to 3 tablespoons milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350.

In one bowl, place the flour, the espresso powder, the cocoa powder, baking powder, and the salt. (I sifted them together, as some of my ingredients came out of the freezer and were a little lumpy.)

In a small pan, melt the stick of butter and set this aside to cool.

In a second bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Whisk in the cooled butter, the milk, and the vanilla extract.

Whisk the two sets of ingredients together, and then add the hot water and stir that in.

Prepare an 8 x 4 loaf pan by greasing, and then fitting a piece of parchment paper inside so a couple inches stick up above the longer edges. This sling will make it easy to remove the cake.

Add the chocolate batter to the pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, checking with a toothpick or wooden skewer to be sure it’s done but not dry. Let the cake cool on a rack for half an hour, and then remove it to a pretty plate.

In a small bowl, mix the sifted confectioners sugar with a tablespoon or two of milk and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Once the cake is completely cooled, paint on the glaze. Serve exactly as it is, or with ice cream.

Since this is not a messy cake, it's perfectly fine to eat while reading...and haven't we gotten some wonderful new additions to our TBR pile right here on JRW this week?? 

Have you made anything great to treat yourself recently?

Breaking news: Gillian B is the lucky winner of Matthew Quick's We Are the Light!