Lara Bakes: Crumb and Nut Cake

(Blake Bakes) Hello there (this is Blake). Allow me to introduce Lara. She’s one of 19 new “Blake Bakers” we’ve invited to contribute to Blake Makes. Every Wednesday, Blake Makes will feature posts from the Blake Bakers about, you guessed it, baking, baked goods, baking techniques, etc. We think eventually the Blake Bakers will get their own blog (BlakeBakes.com), but for now, we’re happy to feature them right here. There’s what you need to know, so let me get out of the way and let Lara do her thing. Take it away, Lara!

I have a love-hate relationship with cake. Good cake – moist, without gobs of icing, and not too sweet – is great. Most cake, however, is not good cake. Unless they’re flourless, chocolate cakes often turn out too dry. I still remember one my sister made for my birthday years ago (she’s since made much more successful cakes). It was only edible soaked in milk or covered in whipped cream.

I’ve also had my cake failures. That’s why I was ecstatic the first time I made this recipe. It’s moist, it has dark chocolate icing, which is not too sweet, but the cake itself is a nutty flavor. And with three layers (or as many as you want) you get that perfect blend of icing and cake: just enough creamy chocolate with just enough nutty goodness.

I don’t even remember where I found this recipe anymore, but I love it. The only time consuming part (and this is only because I don’t have a food processor) is making the graham cracker crumbs. But I think you can also buy bags of graham cracker crumbs, which is probably the smarter approach.

What you’ll need to make the cake:

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups fine graham cracker crumbs
• 1 cup finely chopped nuts
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350

Blend the shortening, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Combine the crumbs, nuts, and baking powder and add to the shortening mixture alternately with the milk. Pour into three greased eight-inch layer cake pans one and one-fourth inches deep, bake thirty to thirty five minutes. Put together with chocolate cream frosting.

What you’ll need to make the chocolate cream frosting:

• 1 cup (6oz package) semisweet chocolate pieces
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup butter

In the top of a double boiler heat the chocolate, water, coffee, and sugar. Stir occasionally until the mixture is smooth beat in the egg yolks one at a time and cook over boiling water three minutes, stirring constantly. Cool to lukewarm and beat in the butter bit by bit.

Lara grew up in northern California where the words “hella” and “tight” were avid members of her vocabulary. That quickly changed, however, as after starting at UCLA she was duly educated in proper SoCal etiquette. Being a dork, she majored in math, but being indecisive she also took a lot of writing classes, wrote for her school newspaper The Daily Bruin, and after graduating decided writing was what she wanted to pursue. She currently works as an editorial assistant at The Robb Report, where she writes about furniture, and hosts a blog, The Ladybug and the Lion, where she writes about whatever she wants. She also loves food. Her current favorites include beer, oysters, and authentic mexican.