gorgeous. but give the people what they want – a crumb shot!
3 Likes
phenomenal !
Is that brie or a huge chunk of butter under the jam??? 
2 Likes
Huge chunk of butter!
3 Likes
Love it!
1 Like
Is it chocolate or maybe Guinness?
1 Like
Chocolate! The Hershey’s perfectly chocolate cake recipe but made with higher end cocoa powder. 7 minute frosting that didn’t quite whip up like it’s supposed to, hence the wonkiness.
4 Likes
Dots > Sprinkles.
3 Likes
100%
That looks awesome!
Might I ask… what cocoa powder did you use? For quality and price, I like Rodelle, which you can get at Costco Business. But I’d love to hear about other cocoas!
1 Like
A small rustic loaf with bread flour whole wheat and buckwheat. Almost didn’t make it into the oven because I was a little to light on the bench flour and it got stuck on the way to the oven 
.. Was so close to just trashing it, I was so mad at myself but it all worked out.
7 Likes
The approach I’ve been using for the past few yrs is that, regardless of how f*cked it is, always bake. b/c you know how it might turn out or what useful info you might glean for the next time.
Now, whether I would SERVE it to someone else is a diff story. 
But your loaf looks great.
How does buckwheat affect the crumb?
2 Likes
Like adding rye -no gluten so you have to add in small amounts. This was 250g Bread flour, 50g whole wheat and 25g buckwheat.
Thanks! Kinda surprised it’s so normal looking, you can tell the scoring went off to one side from being tugged by the part that stuck but otherwise still got decent oven spring which seems to have straightened it all out.
2 Likes
I like both Guittard and Valrhona.
2 Likes
Excellent - good to know, thanks!
I have worked with the Guittard chips but not the cocoa. Fab to know it is nice.
2 Likes
Guitard has two cocoa powders the regular red (rouge) and a dark if you want to make something the color of an oreo cookie (available at Surfas i believe)
1 Like
Good to know. I’ve only used the rouge. I did make a cake once with the Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder and it definitely looked like a giant Oreo Cakester.
2 Likes
I baked fruitcake around midnight last night. This was pretty close to a Jamie Oliver recipe.
I had been soaking the candied fruit and dried fruit in Appleton rum and Metaxa Brandy for about 3 months. I added 3 cups of toasted broken walnuts.
Each loaf weighed just under 2 lbs, before going into the oven. I had filled them 3/4 full. I may fill them 2/3 full and bake at 300⁰F rather the 325⁰F for the first hour next time, to see if that keeps the loaves from cracking. These ones cracked in the first hour of baking, at 325⁰F. The Jamie Oliver recipe has the first hour of baking at 325⁰ F, then the next hour to 90 minutes at 300⁰F.
I will start at 300 next time and maybe reduce the heat after the first hour.
I baked 2 loaves in a Bain Marie and 1 on a cookie sheet, to compare results. I will use a Bain Marie going fwd.
Fruitcake ideally should be baked to an internal temp of 205⁰ to 210⁰ F.
I pulled the loaves in the Bain Marie, which were taking longer to bake understandably, when they were around 195 ⁰F, since I was worried the bottom crust was overbrowning.
The middle and some crumbs are slightly underbaked. Not terrible, but could be better!
The loaf baked on a cookie sheet, which came out of the oven with an internal temp of 205⁰ F had a slightly over browned bottom. I think the Bain Marie protects against that.
I’m relatively new to Fruitcake baking. I have made the Nigel Slater Xmas cake twice, a King Arthur Flour recipe once, a Newfie recipe once, and a Guyanese Black Cake once.
So, this was my 6th time baking Fruitcake!
8 Likes