Polish Housewife

Polish recipes served up with tidbits of folklore, customs, and history

Chocolate Pavarotti with Wicked Good Ganache

by 21 Comments

I realized when I was a Heavenly Cake Baker that Rose and I have different ideas about chocolate cake. I am a huge fan of chocolate, but it was the non-chocolate cakes in Rose’s Heavenly Cakes that tended to be my favorites. There were only two cakes in that cookbook with chocolate that I would make again. One of them being the Chocolate Tweed Angelfood Cake which totally changed my mind about angelfood and necessitated buying a tube pan rather than just borrowing one for a friend for the blog post.

Chocolate Pavarotti with Wicked Good Ganache from The Baking Bible

Before I get into this, let me expalin that I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee Friday morning. Even though it involves general anesthesia, the procedure is minimally invasive. The doctor told me that with a desk job, I could probably be back at work on Monday morning. Lucky me, the office is closed for a holiday today, so I get an extra day of taking it easy, keeping my leg elevated and surrounded with ice.

I was pretty excited that I felt up to baking this weekend, and grateful that this cake was an easy one. I checked the pantry, made a shopping list for Ed, who was kind enough to make the store run, so I could keep the time on my feet to a minimum. I pointed out that I was putting alkalized cocoa on the shopping list. I said not to buy natural cocoa if he couldn’t find alkalized becuase we already had some in the pantry. Wouldn’t you know it, the natural cocoa I had was the only one the store carried. This just wasn’t the week to run all over town in search of cocoa.

That’s my confession, friends. I baked with the wrong cocoa, so the recipe didn’t really get a fair shake. I know that the pH is different, it reacts differently with the chemical leavening. Whether the cocoa is responsible for the disappointment with this cake, I can’t say.

The texture was very fine, but we found the cake dry and unappealing. As for the ganache, since we like spicy food, I split the difference, using the middle of the range suggested for cayenne. I know that one jar of cayenne is not the same as another, but we found the prodominat flavor in the ganche to be the cayenne, the chocolate taste was secondary and too dark for me.

The good news is I’m not tempted to eat more than a taste, so it’s a good week for my waistline. ๐Ÿ˜‰

chocolate pavarotti with wicked good ganache

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Julie Kenkel

    Well I, for one, am super happy to know that you are feeling good enough to even be thinking about being in the kitchen and even if this isn’t your favorite cake, I’d call that a resounding success!

    Reply

  2. Michele

    Bless your heart, baking with your sore knee! This isn’t my favorite cake, but it was very good. I love the ganache with the cayenne, though. My family doesn’t like chocolate cake (what’s WRONG with them??) so I don’t bake them often and can’t really compare this one to others in Rose’s books. Take care of that knee!!

    Reply

  3. evilcakelady

    i hope your knee heals quickly and perfectly! you are a dedicated baker to be baking just after surgery, too bad this cake wasn’t to your liking. oh well–better luck next time.

    Reply

  4. Vicki B

    Arthroscopic is way better than a knee replacement, right?! You must be doing fabulous to stand and bake. Your cake looks good. I bet there will be some takers for coffee break at work.

    Reply

  5. faithy

    I had to google arthroscopic surgery. I think next time I may have to do this too. Now my knee is also painful due to the worn off cartilage. I have to minimise walking up and down the stairs. I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t like this cake. Your cake looked delicious and ganache fluffy too!

    Reply

    • polishhousewife

      Faithy, that sounds like me, minimal walking and stairs. Lots of swelling and pain if I overdid it. In the US, we also have a gel-like (not steriod) injection for joints, that my doctor thinks I’ll benefit from in a few months, after my knee has recovered from surgery.

      Reply

  6. Monica

    Lois.. hats off to you, baking after surgery? Anything that involves general anesthesia is serious stuff (at least for me – me and the happy gas are not BFF). I’m glad you are doing better, and hope that your Monday at work went well. Reading your post, I had a lightbulb moment. When I was baking this cake, it called for 14.6 grams of baking powder and thought to myself it was way too much, but one to trust, that is what I used.. maybe that extra baking powder made the texture of my cake funky?

    Reply

    • polishhousewife

      I was lucky with the anesthia, Monica. It was the first time I’ve had a general, but it was very effective and no sideeffects thankfully.

      The movers took the bateries out of my scale, and I haven’t remembered to replace them yet, so I did the baking powder by volume and still funky texture.

      Reply

  8. Catherine

    What dedication to bake after a general anaesthetic. I’d be taking the opportunity to lie around with a good excuse. I hope it’s healing well. What a shame you weren’t that happy with the cake. Was this the one that Rose said she likes the best? I thought I read that somewhere?

    Reply

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