Hi, all!

I made this cake over the weekend for a friend’s birthday on Monday.  Everyone really, really loved it.  Just total raves. 

For me, however, this is the first cake that I’ve found not to be perfect.  First, allow me to note that I didn’t use the nuts, due to recipient preference.  I did make us little loaf ones with nuts, though.

I had expected this to be truffly brownie chunks surrounded by cake, but the overall feeling was more of a big brownie forced into a cake shape.  The differentiation wasn’t there, but maybe I did somethign wrong.

The brownies themselves were nice, but they were so fudgy, they were difficult to slice, even cold.  They really stuck to the knife.  I cut them in 1/4” strips, then laid the strips on their sides and cut that down the middle so the 1/2” tall strip is now two 1/4” strips.  Then I cut them into 1/4” cubes.  I continued across the pan, thus.  No doubt some were up to 1/2”, but I was very concientious and there weren’t many of those, and certainly none bigger.  I might consider the brownies from the Baked cookbook if I made this cake again—like these, they contain no leavening and are extremely fudgy.  However, they are also really neat in that yuo could easily cut them into disciplined cubes. 

I don’t know what it is—Is the brownies:cake ratio too great?  Did I do somethign wrong?  I got full volume in a 12c bundt pan, so I don’t think the cake was compressed in any way.

The dulce de leche makes a marvellous topping for this, BTW. 

My happiest moment was when the cake went ‘thud’—perfectly falling out of my bundt pan with no sticking.  I use Spectrum shortening only in it, and I was so relieved that it came out in one perfect piece!

This is a great tassting cake, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not what I had expected and hoped for.  However, let me say, if you want a cake that people will just love…make this one!!!!  Note that I didn’t do the burbon or any other syrups.

It looks very pretty Anne. Great pictures too!

Your cake looks exactly like the cake in RHC.  From your description, it came out as it should, and actually for all the reasons you described, plus Rose’s description in the book, this is the one cake in RHC that holds no appeal for me at all.  I’m not all that big on brownies!  I actually saw the stadium pan that Rose used at Sur La Table and it’s pretty small, proportionally, for what I would imagine a stadium cake to look like, so I’m not surprised it fits perfectly in a Bundt type pan.  I can’t wait to try the dulce la leche icing!

Anne, it’s a lovely cake!  So nice to hear everyone liked it, even if it wasn’t your favorite style of cake.  And the dulce de leche topping looks great, it’s good to know that works so well.

Thank you all so much!

The DDL is the most awesome stuff in existence, and, as you can see, it makes a great flowing, but not running, topping.

The concept is such an awesome one that I wish it had worked out that way, so it’s like that.  But, the cake was delish, to be sure, just not what I’d expected…......but I mean, it’s really good!!!

Another update—

The hub and self had a slice of the litte loaf-shaped ones I made (where the brownies have nuts in them).  Quite excellent.  The differentiation of the cake vs. brownies come through better when the cake is cold, as the denseness of the brownies is more apparent.  The DDL is a fabulous icing for this and goes with everythign beautifully.

The hub really liked it, and he is quite fussy, but so far, he’s turning into an A-#1 Rose fanatic, and rightly so.

My last word (until my favorite baked goods exchanger tries hers) is that if you have a friend who’d rather have brownies than cake, but you’d rather make cake than brownies, make this cake.  Everyone will be insanely delighted and you will have gotten to make a cake instead of a pan of brownies.

That’s a great looking cake, Anne! I really like that shape of cake.

This turned out great! Love the DDL idea, sounds perfect! Thanks for the description as I had been wondering about this one. As I am not a brownie fan, I will have to find some brownie lovers if I ever try it.

Sticking to the knife, sounds great to me!

My newest DDL thought is to put some unsweetened chocolate, or very dark chocolate,  in there with it and making a really thick chocolate caramel sauce.  I tell you, make DDL, and it will stick in your mind in a serious way!

After looking at your cake and your description of it,  I definitely want to make it.  Two of my favorite things, cake and brownies!!  I wonder if I could make it the pan that rose uses for her barcelona brownies, or my mini-cheesecake pan.  I have taken a few of Rose’s recipes and made them in small portion pans and they turned out great. (ie, carrot cake, cheesecake, sponge cake)  I just find that if I make a whole cake just to have at home it ends up going stale before all of it is eaten.  I like the individual portions and they freeze well.

I made 1.5x the recipe—did the “main” in the bundt and then did 3 small loaf pans. Little loaves came out great, so you should definitely be able to do it in your barcelona pans.  Note that if you make it as a bundt, you can let the cake get cold in the fridge, you can slice it neatly and wrap and freeze the slices, so you can really go either way you care to.

If you like cake and brownies, you will LOVE this cake!

They look wonderful Anne.  I was going to try this recipe, and now I am really excited to try it.

Anne, it looks perfect to me.  I’m not a browny lover but I know I am in the minority.  My husband would love to be served a cake like that.

I love that cake, Anne! It looks beautiful.

Thanks, MP!  And you know, I made little loaf versions for the hub and self (with nuts in the brownies in this case), and I have grown more and more fond of it.  The cake, on the whole, is still like a big dense slice of brownie, but it’s this amazing “best of both worlds” brownie—a perfect cross between cake-and-fudge brownie.  Especially fabulous cold, because you really get the contrast of textures between the brownie parts and the cake parts.