I Made That! Devil's Food Sheet Cake
We love sheet cakes. We've written whole books on them. In this episode of our podcast, Mark is going to make a devil's food sheet cake in real time--a throw-back recipe that hits all the marks for a delicious treat.
Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough have written dozens of cookbooks, won lots of awards, and been on several best-seller lists. In this episode, they're cooking from scratch together, something no married couple should ever do.
Transcript
This episode Devil's Food Chocolate Sheet Cake.
Speaker:Welcome.
Speaker:I'm Bruce Weinstein.
Speaker:I'm the chef in Bruce.
Speaker:And Mark.
Speaker:Hey there.
Speaker:And I'm Mark Scarborough.
Speaker:I'm
Speaker:the writer, and together we've published more than 25 cookbooks and won some
Speaker:national awards like the I A C P People's Choice Award this year, baby,
Speaker:and some international awards like the Gormand Award at the Paris Book Show.
Speaker:Fifi and we've appeared on a number of national bestseller
Speaker:lists.
Speaker:We were two below 50 shades of gray this year.
Speaker:I have always wanted to be two below 50 shades of gray.
Speaker:I
Speaker:may be the chef, but today I'm getting out of the kitchen because I've
Speaker:got a secret As a writer, I haven't cooked a thing in years except maybe
Speaker:bowls of kibble for the collies.
Speaker:Woo,
Speaker:woo, woo.
Speaker:That's about to change.
Speaker:Mark's headed into the kitchen.
Speaker:Remember, he's a writer and he gets easily distracted, usually by bourbon.
Speaker:Hey,
Speaker:watch it.
Speaker:I'm
Speaker:doing the cooking and I'm gonna help you out, and I'm gonna guide him and I'm gonna
Speaker:give him tips and I'm gonna judge him.
Speaker:And so after 25 books, he can finally say, Hey,
Speaker:I fucking made that
Speaker:today.
Speaker:Mark has to make a chocolate devil's.
Speaker:He has to make it.
Speaker:He doesn't just wanna make it.
Speaker:And why is that, mark?
Speaker:Well, okay, I'm a former academic and
Speaker:what does that have to do with cakes?
Speaker:Hey, gimme a minute here.
Speaker:I got out of the literature teaching racket almost 20 years ago.
Speaker:I never wanted to convince another.
Speaker:Idiot Manchild, why he had to read Jane Air , whatever.
Speaker:I thought I was done teaching lit, but now I lead book groups all
Speaker:across our part of New England.
Speaker:I teach lit classes and I always bring food, and I always make
Speaker:it for
Speaker:you.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:I married a chef, mother didn't raise an idiot, but this time
Speaker:I wanted to make the cake
Speaker:myself, and you're going to make something really.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:New Yorkers are so provincial about things.
Speaker:I wanna try my hand at the Southern Standard, a sheet cake.
Speaker:Now, for the uninitiated, I'm not talking about a cake and a nine by 13 inch pan.
Speaker:I'm talking about something outta my southern
Speaker:roots.
Speaker:Something other than treason.
Speaker:Watch it.
Speaker:I've got relatives in the nra.
Speaker:They haven't bathed in years.
Speaker:They can take you out . Anyway, what I'm talking about is a cake
Speaker:in an 11 by 17 inch baking pan.
Speaker:It's kind of the American standard, a sheet pan with that half inch
Speaker:lip around the, the whole pan.
Speaker:And it's not insulated.
Speaker:I know this much.
Speaker:It can't be insulated or the batter won't set properly.
Speaker:You know, it's the kind of cake I didn't know about grow.
Speaker:I knew about layer cakes and Dobo Torts and Stroodles and Italian cream.
Speaker:The only thing I knew about cheesecakes where they like had them a Mayberry R
Speaker:F D, they looked cheap and easy, and to be honest, they reminded me of cafeteria
Speaker:food.
Speaker:I'll have you know that my grandmother was a lunch lady in a cafeteria back
Speaker:in the days when they had professional bakers who worked in elementary schools.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:Anyway, chicas are the ultimate cakes for people who like frosting.
Speaker:You end up with this thin layer of cake with lots of frosting on top
Speaker:of it.
Speaker:What I like about.
Speaker:Is that I never have to portion out my frosting properly.
Speaker:You know, you eat a layer cake sometimes and you run outta frosting before a
Speaker:cake, or you run outta a cake before frosting when I have made sheet cakes.
Speaker:You're right, there's always enough frosting with every bite of cake.
Speaker:It works really nice.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And today it gets to be a
Speaker:chocolate buttercream.
Speaker:It does not.
Speaker:You're making a chocolate butter frosting.
Speaker:There's a huge difference between butter frosting and true buttercream,
Speaker:and we will talk about that later.
Speaker:But right now, let's get you in the kitchen and let's get you.
Speaker:Before I got this mixer going here, I did two things.
Speaker:First of all, I mix two thirds of cup cocoa powder and a cup of boiling
Speaker:water in a bowl, and I've set that aside to cool for about 15 minutes.
Speaker:And in a second bowl, I've whisked together two cups plus two tablespoons
Speaker:cake flour, a teaspoon of baking soda, and a half a teaspoon of salt.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Why'd I do what I
Speaker:did?
Speaker:Well, mark, you mixed all of your dry ingredients the way the
Speaker:recipe told you to for evenness.
Speaker:So when you mix those dry ingredients into your wet ones later, your
Speaker:Mark's batter is going to be.
Speaker:Even what I mean by that, there won't be pockets with extra salt.
Speaker:He won't have pockets with extra leavening and his cake will rise evenly.
Speaker:The same thing happens with that cocoa.
Speaker:It softens up that cocoa, mixes it with the water, and this way Mark's battle will
Speaker:be smooth and even and rise perfectly.
Speaker:Okay,
Speaker:so now I'm beating 12 tablespoons of butter with one and three
Speaker:quarter cups white sugar.
Speaker:And the butter was cold to start with, which is why it just takes so long.
Speaker:Here's the deal.
Speaker:There's this old recipe cliche about room temperature butter.
Speaker:I know you've read it.
Speaker:It says in recipes, you know, X amount of butter at room temperature,
Speaker:plus X amount of sugar, and you beat that together, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:The way that all happened, and it's actually wrong, is from the sixties
Speaker:and handheld mixers, when those little convenience handheld mixers came in
Speaker:into vogue, they couldn't handle chilled butter, and so recipes began to be
Speaker:written with this room temperature butter, in order to accommodate.
Speaker:Handheld mixers, unfortunately, room temperature, butter can't really hold
Speaker:air structure the way chilled butter can.
Speaker:The fat is kind of loose in there and it doesn't hold the
Speaker:air molecules as it should.
Speaker:So really you need chilled butter to build good structure as you beat it
Speaker:with the sugar as it holds air in place.
Speaker:So I took my butter out.
Speaker:I caught it into little bitty bits.
Speaker:I put them in the bowl, and then I set that aside and I gathered
Speaker:all my other ingredients together.
Speaker:And this way the butter is chilled.
Speaker:It's not as frigid as when it comes out of the refrigerator, but it's chill
Speaker:and it's taking a really long time.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's paid off because look at that consistency.
Speaker:It's light and it's fluffy.
Speaker:It's still a little grainy, but it's perfect.
Speaker:There's so much air in that mix.
Speaker:It's absolutely.
Speaker:So now it's time to beat in those eggs, but stop what?
Speaker:Don't do them all at once.
Speaker:Let's do one at a time, and we have to make sure that each.
Speaker:Egg is incorporated completely before the next one, but even more
Speaker:important than that, on your exit room temperature, they have to be, do you know
Speaker:why I'm only blonde in appearance?
Speaker:Yes, I know why?
Speaker:Because one cold eggs will chill down the butter in the batter.
Speaker:The butter's a little warmer now from being beaten.
Speaker:Into this batter and chilled eggs could chill it down and cause little bits
Speaker:of butter to fall outta suspension.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But even more important, number two, room temperature.
Speaker:Eggs have a loosey goosey protein structure.
Speaker:They're all relaxed and elongated.
Speaker:The proteins aren't cramped up with the cold.
Speaker:And these relaxed strands can mix into the batter and build a really nice structure.
Speaker:The rule in almost all cakes is cool, fat room temperature, protein, or in other
Speaker:words, cool butter, room temperature,
Speaker:eggs.
Speaker:Okay, so now goes in half cup sour cream, also at room temperature and
Speaker:the cocoa powder mixture, which is cooled to a bout room temperature
Speaker:and two teaspoons vanilla extract.
Speaker:And I let the machine beat those in until the batter's smooth and.
Speaker:Seems about right to
Speaker:me, eh, not until you turn the machine off.
Speaker:Scrape down the sides and start it up again.
Speaker:Just make sure everything is blended, really smooth and well.
Speaker:So while we're stopped, I have a question for you, Mr.
Speaker:Ryder.
Speaker:Why is it called a Devil's food cake?
Speaker:Ah, my kind of thing, cultural history.
Speaker:Well, listen, a Devil's food cake probably originated as a chocolate
Speaker:angel food cake, or maybe a chocolate sponge cake, a really tall, light,
Speaker:airy cake with chocolate in it.
Speaker:But these days, and over time, the idea has kind of changed, and
Speaker:now it just means any intense.
Speaker:Chocolate cake with lots of chocolate inside of it.
Speaker:In this case, the recipe that Bruce created used two
Speaker:thirds of cup cocoa powder.
Speaker:That's a pretty big amount for this cake, and it gives it a kind of
Speaker:rich, chocolatey, intense textural chewiness that makes it devil's food.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Let's get this batter in the oven.
Speaker:Okay, marque his oven heated to 350 degrees.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Heated.
Speaker:What is this recipe?
Speaker:Cliche, preheated.
Speaker:How do you preheat an oven?
Speaker:What does that mean?
Speaker:Aren't you just heating it to 350 degrees and then maintaining it there?
Speaker:You're not preheating it before you heat it.
Speaker:I said it before and I'll say it again.
Speaker:Southern Baptist can be so excitable.
Speaker:Yes, we can.
Speaker:So I've removed the beaters and I'm ready to fold in the cake flower mixture.
Speaker:I just dump it in there and then fold it with a rubber spatula
Speaker:until I see no white streaks of
Speaker:batter, and you're folding it so that the gluten doesn't have a chance
Speaker:to make that batter and cake tough.
Speaker:If you beat it, the gluten will make the cake tough.
Speaker:Gluten is just protein and flour.
Speaker:So now is the time when you fold earlier, we beat it like crazy
Speaker:to get air in with the sugar.
Speaker:Eggs and the butter.
Speaker:Now we're folding it gently.
Speaker:Cooking is hard work.
Speaker:Yeah, it is.
Speaker:And you can get back to writing later, but right now scrape
Speaker:that batter into the sheep pan.
Speaker:It's pretty thick.
Speaker:I'm getting it into the pan, but I'm also gonna have to spread it around to
Speaker:get it completely out to the corners.
Speaker:It's, it's a thick batter.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Here's an unexpected difference between Bruce and meat.
Speaker:Earlier when I greased this sheet pan, I put a little butter on some wax paper.
Speaker:I spread it all over the inside of the sheet pan, and
Speaker:then I added a little flour.
Speaker:I shook the pan this way and that till I got a fine film of flour over everything.
Speaker:I tapped out the excess flower into the sink.
Speaker:I did all of that, but that's not how Bruce greases and flowers a sheet band.
Speaker:What do you do, Mr.
Speaker:I used
Speaker:baking spray.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I found it in the early nineties Baker's Secret.
Speaker:It was, uh, baking spray with flour early in the mix.
Speaker:And it makes cooking, which is such hard work, so much easier.
Speaker:Huh?
Speaker:So much for the ozone layer.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But we'll never have a cake.
Speaker:Stick to a pan again and let's get this cake in the oven.
Speaker:The cake came out of the oven after about 18 minutes.
Speaker:Sheep cakes are thin, so they cook super fast, and it's been cooling on
Speaker:a wire wrap for about two hours now.
Speaker:And now you're ready to frost it.
Speaker:I love.
Speaker:Buttercream.
Speaker:Too bad
Speaker:you're not making
Speaker:any.
Speaker:That's not fair.
Speaker:I got two sticks plus two tablespoons of butter here.
Speaker:Yeah, true.
Speaker:It's not fair.
Speaker:And yes, you are making a kind of buttercream, but not
Speaker:a real French buttercream.
Speaker:That's a cooked frosting made with even more butter than you have out there.
Speaker:Plus egg yolks and a hot sugar syrup.
Speaker:And that might be a little too advanced for you right now.
Speaker:Always
Speaker:something to aspire to.
Speaker:Okay, so I'm gonna, Simple butter frosting.
Speaker:Hey, Mr.
Speaker:Ryder, what's the difference between a frosting and an icing theology?
Speaker:I have no idea what you're talking
Speaker:about.
Speaker:Look, it's a southern thing.
Speaker:It has to do with Methodists.
Speaker:I'll explain it to you later.
Speaker:Anyway, this frosting's made with all that butter plus six ounces
Speaker:of melted semi-sweet chocolate, a little heavy cream and soul.
Speaker:I'm gonna mix that for about two minutes until it's
Speaker:super smooth, and I noticed your butter was at room temperature this time,
Speaker:which is terrific because here we're not looking to beat air into this, so it
Speaker:rises nicely like we did with the batter.
Speaker:We want this butter at room temperature so it's smooth and
Speaker:velvety and creamy and luscious.
Speaker:Okay, now I'm gonna add confectioners sugar, powdered sugar, whatever you.
Speaker:The recipe says it should take between three and four cups,
Speaker:and that's a huge range.
Speaker:But the reason we do that is because confection is sugar.
Speaker:Just like flour is affected by humidity.
Speaker:It could be heavier, it could be lighter, it could have more
Speaker:moisture in it, it could have less.
Speaker:So you're gonna start mark by putting half a cup in and we'll see what happens.
Speaker:And then we'll add another half cup and then we'll start adding a little
Speaker:less than a half cup at each time.
Speaker:We don't want to go too much at once, cuz we can't take that if you go too far.
Speaker:Okay, I got it.
Speaker:The frosting mounds on the back of a rubber spatula, it holds its shape.
Speaker:Yet I can spread it right on the
Speaker:cake.
Speaker:Not with that rubber spatula.
Speaker:You don't.
Speaker:Why not?
Speaker:You'll tear the cake.
Speaker:You'll end up with uneven patterns of frosting.
Speaker:You need the right tool for the right job.
Speaker:You
Speaker:always have to be right, don't you?
Speaker:Well, maybe,
Speaker:but you need an offset spatula here.
Speaker:See the offset spatula is the perfect tool.
Speaker:It's kind of like a trel that a mason uses when he builds a brick wall.
Speaker:It spreads the icing evenly, the handle is normal, and then the blade bends
Speaker:down and then goes flat again, and it gives you a long flat surface that
Speaker:you can spread evenly and beautifully
Speaker:satisfied, one properly iced cake done with an offset spatula.
Speaker:You'd rather be right than happy,
Speaker:wouldn't you?
Speaker:Do?
Speaker:I have to choose now my favorite.
Speaker:Tasting and judgment.
Speaker:Get over yourself.
Speaker:Oh, it's very light.
Speaker:You did great.
Speaker:It
Speaker:is, it's surprising light.
Speaker:Um, I like the creamy frosting.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It may not be a real buttercream, but Oh my God.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:It's quite delicious.
Speaker:Fabulous.
Speaker:It's, it's, I'm, you know what?
Speaker:You just go on.
Speaker:I'm gonna
Speaker:keep eating for a while.
Speaker:No, you have to swallow.
Speaker:Cause I'm gonna ask you, mark, what'd you learn today?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I learned that you complain a lot about making things for book groups, but
Speaker:they're kind of easy to move and . Okay.
Speaker:I learned that batters need to be beaten a lot before you add the
Speaker:flower, but not so much after.
Speaker:In fact, really not much at all.
Speaker:After and I learned the importance of an offset spatula.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Forgetting an even layer of frosting on a sheet cake.
Speaker:And
Speaker:what did you learn?
Speaker:Well, I learned a sheet cake.
Speaker:Like a lot of things you've introduced me to from the south is
Speaker:a delight, but I'm not quite sure about the relatives in the nra.
Speaker:Patience,
Speaker:my pupil patience.
Speaker:This recipe for Devil's food cheesecake comes from a monumental
Speaker:900 recipe tome, the ultimate cook.
Speaker:Available wherever fine books are sold, but you could find this specific recipe
Speaker:on our website, Bruce and mark.com.
Speaker:If you like our podcast, would you mind rating us and reviewing us on iTunes
Speaker:or whatever platform you found us on?
Speaker:And don't forget to sign up for our newsletter by dropping us a note
Speaker:at our blog, bruce and mark.com.
Speaker:Check it out.
Speaker:Devil's food sheet Cake.
