Diced! Dessert Bracket: The Oreo Cake

I announced earlier that in honor of March Madness, I decided to create a dessert bracket with 16 styles of desserts. I’ve invited 16 great chefs to each take a category and make a recipe to enter into battle. I ranked the 16 based on my view of which was the favorite and like any bracket, the favorites are matched against the lower seeds. I won’t give you my seeding because I do not want to artificially impact your choices.

I will post a pairing each week on Wednesday and Thursday and open the polls for voting. The polls will be open from Thursday until the following Wednesday (before the next pair posts). The winner of each matchup with the most votes will move on to the next round and the chef will produce another recipe for their new matchup. The overall winner will receive any prizes I can acquire. To date the winner will receive:

• Dodo Book for Cooks

• A beautiful Bamboo Cutting Board with a Butterfly Motif, graciously donated by competitor Lindy (The Kozy Nook)

This week’s pairing is:

Cake (Chocolate Varieties) vs. Jell-O (and other gelatin)

Today we have Sophie from mommytrainingwheels was assigned the Cake (Chocolate Varieties) category. Here is what she made….

Hi, my name is Sophie and I have a few confessions to make.

Confession #1 : I am not a baker.  Nope.  Not at all.  I am a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife (well, sort of).  I am a teacher and I love to be in the kitchen.  But I am not a baker.  I do, however, love to bake.  I love the precision that it takes.  I love how too much or too little of an ingredient can change what you’re trying to do.

Confession #2:  I like to rebel in the kitchen.  I love to experiment, to substitute ingredients.  I love to not follow some instructions too precisely just to see what happens.

Confession #3:  I am a procrastinator.  Seriously.  I baked my chocolate cake at the very last minute as I worked through the pain of a lovely ear infection because , it helped me pass the time more quickly and I had no choice.

Confession #4:  I don’t even like chocolate cake.  I find that most times, it is too sweet for my tastes.  I do, however, like Oreos.

And so, without further ado, I bring you *drumroll please*

The Oreo Cake

The cake mix starts off with a pretty standard list of ingredients.

Cake mix recipe taken from the book “” (The Chemistry of Desserts)

Ingredients

500 mL (2 cups):        All purpose flour

180 mL (3/4 cup) :      type cocoa

5 mL (1 teaspoon):     Baking soda

1 mL (1/4 teaspoon): Salt

180 mL (3/4 cup) :      Unsalted butter, softened (I used melted butter)

375 mL: (1 ½  cups): Sugar

3:                                 Eggs, tempered (I used mine straight out of the fridge)

10 mL (2 teaspoons):  Vanilla extract

375 mL (1 ½  cups):   Milk

Directions

• Place the grill in the center of the oven.  Preheat oven to 350F (180 C).  Grease one 9 inch springform pan or two 8 inch cake pans.

• In a bowl, sieve together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.

• In another bowl, using an electric hand whisk, beat the butter a few seconds, until it takes on a creamy texture.  Gradually add the sugar and keep whisking until the mix becomes light in color, about 3 to 4 minutes.  (Alternatively, if you used melted butter, just add all the sugar to the butter and beat until the mix becomes light in color).

•  Add the eggs, one at a time while continuing to whisk until the mix turns almost whitish and is very homogenous, about 2 minutes.  Add the vanilla.

• On the lowest speed, incorporate the dry ingredients and the milk until well mixed in.

• Transfer the mix to springform pan for about 1 hour 15 minutes (for me, it took 1 hour 50 minutes before the cake was cooked. (Alternatively, bake for 30-35 min if two 8 inch cake moulds were used).

• Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes, remove from mould and let the cake cool completely on a pastry grill.

Oreo Frosting

Ingredients

12:                               Oreo cookies

250 mL (1 cup):          Whipping cream (35%)

To taste:                      Maple syrup

Directions

• Put the 12 Oreo cookies in a food processor and reduce them to a fine powder.

• In a bowl, pour the cream and, with an electric hand whisk, whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks.  Add the Oreo crumbs and continue to whisk until you obtain firm peaks.  Taste and add extra sweetener if desired (I found that it was sweet enough with just the Oreos)

• Cut the cake in two lengthwise.  Spread a little over a third of the frosting on top of the bottom half of the cake.  Put the top half on and spread the rest of the frosting on the top.

• Admire your work of art and hide the cake so that no one other than you can eat it!