Nutella Poundcake by Joan's on Third

For World Nutella Day last week, Joan’s on Third made the yummiest poundcake I ever heard of: Nutella poundcake. Why didn’t anyone tell me that such a thing of beauty existed? Luckily I found out from Nastassia of Let Me Eat Cake, who happens to work at Joan’s and who was good enough to save me a loaf! Huzzah! I braved a torrential rainstorm and cross-town traffic during rush hour to pick it up. And twas sooo worth it.

Once I got it home I dug into it, nearly eating the whole thing in one sitting. Fortunately (or
unfortunately) I was able to remember to save some for my bf since I had been going on and on about it and he was good enough to drive me through a torrential rainstorm in rush-hour traffic to get it. Would have been rude if I didn’t at least save him…a sliver.

Hitting the Nutella motherload.

Anyway, the cake was so moist and OMG the ribbons of Nutella that ran through the cake were like crack, making it difficult to stop eating. Just when I was about to store the cake away, I’d bite into a motherload of that chocolate-hazelnut goodness and continued to nom away. I call this the Ben & Jerry’s effect. And the top of the loaf was a little denser than the rest of the cake, so I could break if off to enjoy like you would the edge of pie crusts.

I have no doubt that I could polish off a whole loaf all by myself.

In any case, you’ll be happy to know that this isn’t a once-a-year thing. Joan’s on Third will be making more Nutella poundcake for this Saturday but they’ll be sold as slices at $1.95 a slice.

However, if you’d like to make one for yourself, unfortunately and understandably, Joan is keeping that recipe to herself but Nastassia has some behind-the-scene coverage of the making of the cake. And I found this Food & Wine recipe for a Nutella Swirl Poundcake that you can take a stab at.

Nutella Swirl Poundcake by Lauren Chattman
from Food & Wine

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• One 13-ounce jar Nutella

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°. Lightly grease and flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan, tapping out any excess flour. In a glass measuring cup, lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla. In a medium bowl, whisk the 1 1/2 cups of flour with the baking powder and salt.
2. In a large bowl, using a handheld mixer, beat the butter with the sugar at medium-high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. With the mixer at medium-low speed, gradually beat in the egg mixture until fully incorporated. Add the flour mixture in 3 batches, beating at low speed between additions until just incorporated. Continue to beat for 30 seconds longer.
3. Spread one-third of the batter in the prepared pan, then spread half of the Nutella on top. Repeat with another third of the batter and the remaining Nutella. Top with the remaining batter. Lightly swirl the Nutella into the batter with a butter knife. Do not overmix.
4. Bake the cake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a wire rack, turn it right side up and let cool completely, about 2 hours. Cut the cake into slices and serve.

Don’t know where to find a jar of Nutella? Use this handy-dandy site to locate one near you.

Chocolate Ganache for Sale

I had arrived too late! The Eat My Blog bake sale at Zeke’s Smokehouse in West Hollywood was scheduled to last from 10am to 4pm and I figured that if I got there around noon I’d still be able to get some of that bacon brownie goodness with bourbon caramel sauce that I kept reading about. But I was so wrong. By noon, most of everything was already sold out!

Cathy Danh, mastermind of Eat My Blog

With over 40 blogger bakers — including founder of Eat My Blog and author of Gastronomy Blog Cathy Danh, Teenage Glutster‘s Javier Cabral, My Last Bite‘s Jo Stougaard and Mattatouille‘s Matthew Kang — and 600 baked goods that is quite a feat.

Thanks to great publicity and word of mouth via Twitter and blogs, there was never a quiet moment at the sale even though its location at the busy intersection of Santa Monica and La Brea wasn’t exactly the prime spot for foot traffic. It was, however, located right next door to a Beverages & More; bloggers do love their booze as was evident by all the after-bake-sale visits.

Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf was generous enough to provide a coffee/hot chocolate station and a barista for the occasion while Zeke’s Smokehouse not only donated its patio but some tasty brownies for the sale.

By the time I got to the event, pickings were slim but I was still able to find some instant favorites like Mattatouilles’s rich butterscotch budino, Pete Eatemall‘s cinnamon chocolate mini bundt cake and Eating LA‘s dark chocolate walnut cookies. But still so sad about the bacon brownies. Le sigh.

Barista, H.C., Esther, Sam Kim.

In any case, the bake sale was a huge success with most everything selling out by 3pm and netting over $3,000 for the Los Angeles Foodbank!

“Eat My Blog was very excited to reach our fundraising goal and we hope to top it the next time around,” said Cathy. “Since this event was such a success we plan to do another one in Summer 2010.”

Score! Cathy had asked if I’d be interested in participating in next year’s sale but I told her I’d have to think about it. In any case I’m more an eater than a baker. Although, maybe I can make a bourbon-based something or other.

BTW, after the jump check out the recipe for Organic Spark’s tasty Maple Walnut Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting.

Much like Chester Cookies, this cake utilizes the technique of soaking grains overnight for improved digestion. Don’t be scared away! It is so easy, and it makes you feel like you are mid-science experiment as you head to bed, which is always fun. The cream cheese frosting can sit on the counter for the day, but longer than 8 hours-ish, I stick the frosted cake in the fridge. It chills well and is delicious cold.

* Kefir is a fermented milk beverage that is filled with healthy probiotics. It can be found in most health-food stores, including some larger mainstream supermarkets. The texture is similar to a thin yogurt. If kefir is unavailable, yogurt may be substituted in equal measure.

** Regular whole wheat flour works well, too. The pastry flour makes for a softer cake, but the regular whole wheat flour is denser and heartier. Both are nice. Whole wheat pastry flour is a variety of whole wheat flour that has less gluten. It can be found in most natural foods stores or Whole Foods Market.

More pics from the Eat My Blog bake sale.

Fuyu Persimmons

I love love love to eat but am not all that crazy about cooking up my own stuff. Lazy, ya see. But since my parents have a couple of persimmons trees, my last visit with them left me with two huge bags of Fuyu persimmons. What to do?

I wanted to make something desserty with it but it seemed that called for the other persimmon variety, Hachiya, which is softer and pulpier. Plus, as I said, I’m a stranger in my own kitchen. Fortunately my sister sent me the link for an easy peasy fruit crumble recipe. So easy that even I could do it. Apparently you can use this with any sort of fruit just as long as it’s not frozen fruit.

After the jump is my recipe that I’ve adapted since the original recipe called for the use of a 9-inch glass pan or 8x8x2 pan and I only had a 14(?)-inch-long pan.

Persimmons Crumble

• 5 cups fruit (about 8 persimmons) cut into chunks
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• dash of salt
• 5 tablespoons cold butter
• 1/4 cup walnut pieces

Cut eight persimmons.

The recipe calls for 5 cups of fruit and I ended up peeling and cutting up eight persimmons. This was actually the “hardest” part of the recipe! FYI, I used a smaller knife to peel the fruit. That big one in the picture was just for cutting up the chunks.

Combine with honey and cinnamon.

Combine the chunks of fruit with the honey and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. Mix and pour into the pan.

Mix the brown sugar, flour, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and salt together.

For the crumble, in a separate bowl mix the brown sugar, flour, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and salt together until the mixture is fine. Add in the walnuts and mix in thoroughly.

Cut the butter into small slices and add them to the dry mixture. Mush the butter into the mix with your hands until it turns into a coarse crumble.

Pour mixture over fruit.

Pour the mixture on top of the fruit and bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 50 minutes.

Bake in 350-degree heat for 50 minutes.

The fruit didn’t really bubble for me as the original recipe had said it would. But that might just have been because of the nature of the fruit, which wasn’t exactly mushy after being baked. However, the spices combined with the sweetness of the persimmons made this a hit at the Thanksgiving eating extravaganza I took part in the next day. It definitely stood out from all those yummy pies, if I do say so myself.

Since this dish is best served warm, I just heated it up in a 200-degree oven for a bit while everyone was finishing up their dinner. Plated it up with some vanilla ice cream, and tasty goodness!

I’m definitely going to make this again for the folks when I visit for Christmas.