Devil’s Food White-Out Cake

“Oh my God, Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white.”

                        -- Gretchen

My first post indicated that I would not be able to provide recipes from cookbooks. This remains true, but one common loophole is to have a link to another website that did have the stones to post the recipe, a passing of the legal buck if you will. I can do that with this recipe, but first a little story.

I was sitting in Book People – for those unfamiliar with Austin, just take a Barnes and Noble and fill it with hipsters – waiting for my roommates to finish filling out job applications when I saw it, the holy grail of baking: Baking, From My Home to Yours. Dorie Greenspan is right up there with Alton Brown, i.e. I would stalk them. I grabbed the book and scurried back to our table, rifling through gorgeous pictures while my roommates tried to ignore me. After I began cooing (somewhere in the brownie chapter), they stopped making eye contact.

Eventually I came across this cake. Like Sméagol, I immediately coveted the precious and had to possess it. Unfortunately the cookbook was forty dollars; how do those “book people” sleep at night? So I spent ten minutes furtively scribbling down the recipe. I was terrified I would get caught in the act and thrown out of the store. Walking out I was so nervous I was convinced the stolen instructions would set of the door alarms. I am not an innate shoplifter.

Anyway, I got home and on a whim did a Google search for Baking, From My Home to Yours. It seems to promote the book Dorie was kind enough to share a recipe with NPR. One specific recipe. So. Awesome.

Paris-Brest Custard Cake

"Make sure you check out her mom's boob job. They're hard as rocks."
                     -- Gretchen

The first post, like the pilot episode, is a crap shoot. I’m making this up as I go and look forward to hating my earlier posts in six months. Until I find my stride, reading this blog is going to be similar to watching a blind man direct traffic. I’d apologize, but your discomfort isn’t important to me, and as a Bradley, I do everything I can to avoid admitting my mistakes.

I looked it up, and I cannot legally post recipes without the author’s permission. Which is a shame since I hate food blogs that don’t provide recipes. I’ll look into loopholes.

This week I chose to make a Paris-Brest Custard Cake. As the photos might indicate, there were many boob jokes to be had. The story goes that the pastry was designed to celebrate a bicycle race between the cities of Paris and Brest. That’s why it looks like a breast bike wheel. I got the recipe from “Butter Sugar Flour Eggs,” an excellent dessert cookbook by Gale Gand, Rick Tramonto, and Julia Moskin. I’m going to post numerous recipes from this book, not just because the food looks good but also because the writers are… eccentric. Each ingredient has its own chapter, complete with a “personality profile.” Those readers who know me personally are probably aware of my tendency to name inanimate objects, but even I don’t give butter a full battery of psychological tests. (Sentence one of the profile: “Butter is a true aristocrat – and a modest one.”)

This is definitely not something one throws together just as company is walking in the door. It took me about four hours to bake and assemble, and in the process I decimated the kitchen. It looked like I’d beaten a giant cream puff to death with every spoon and bowl I own.