Les Petits Gadeaux

Pardon the French, but after over a month in a French speaking territory and three and a half years of French class, I was able to utter four phrases in French to a cab driver yesterday. Les petits gadeaux, or little cakes, is what I made today and I refuse to call them by its proper English term of "bite size" cakes. I've never taken to the idea of bite size food. Don't get me wrong, I love party appetizers and fancy h'orderves as much as the next person, but the idea of taking regular food and shrinking it to "bite size" portions just doesn't sit well with me. Call me a hypocrite, but why oh why would one prefer something that's a quarter the size of what it's intended to be?

Cake is the exception. See, for me, eating cake is all about the frosting to cake ratio and I like me extra frosting. I figured out that the ratio of frosting to cake is dependent upon the surface area of the cake, so simply put, increase the cake surface area and the amount of frosting goes up! With a smaller cake, every piece is a corner piece with at least three frosted sides; none of that middle piece nonsense where there's frosting on only the top side.

I am quite proud of this frosting. I like a frosting that is light and easy to make, none of the precarious nonsense where you whip, whip, whip and it never comes together. (I had a mishap once with a Swiss buttercream frosting, and though I will still devour it if presented to me, I will think twice about attempting to make it again.) Unlike egg white, which I have never had success with, cream will never let you down, provided you give it a bit of time, and it's not as heavy as cream cheese. You can increase the maple syrup by one or two more tablespoons if you want a sweeter frosting, but I felt that with a heavy chocolate cake, three tablespoons was just enough to provide a subtle maple flavor without drowning out the flavor of the chocolate cake.

CHOCOLATE CAKE WITH CITRUS MAPLE FROSTING
(makes about six 2"square cakes)

For the Cake:
(Adapted from a chocolate Madeline recipe)

• 1/2 cup butter, softened and cut into small chunks
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened coco powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

For the Frosting:

• 3/4 cup heavy cream (or whipping cream)
  
• 3 tablespoon maple syrup
• zest of one grapefruit (orange or lemon will also work well)

CAKE:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenhait.

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add in egg one at a time until blended in completely with the butter and sugar.

In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients into the butter/sugar mixture a little at a time until well blended.

Bake in a greased 4"x 8" pan for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick or knife inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Cool cake on a wire rack. Once cooled, trim the edges off and cut cake into 6 pieces.

FROSTING:

Pour the cream into a bowl with most of the citrus zest and whip, whip, whip until the cream peaks. (This can be done with an electric mixer but the manual labor method comes with free anger management. No matter how much you yell and scream and curse at the still runny cream that you've been beating for ages and ages, it will not talk back and it will, eventually, transform itself into light, yummy frosting)

When the cream has been beaten enough, i.e. when there are peaks in the cream, pour in the maple syrup one table spoon at a time and fold it into the cream with a spatula.

Using a small spatula, spread the frosting all over the cake squares as evenly and thoroughly as possible. Sprinkle the reserved zest on top. If you have leftover frosting, dip the cake edge strips in them and enjoy!

Zesty Yogurt Cake

Maybe it's out of boredom, or maybe it's this never ending winter, or more likely it's the sugar rush, but we've had cookies and/or cake every night since we've been in Quebec. We walked (yet another two hours) into town for groceries today and came back equipped with vegetables, fruits, butter and eggs. I believe that every home cook secretly enjoys some of the more repetitive tasks that are unavoidable in food preparation; the endless chopping of vegetables, for example, or the muscle straining whipping of butter and sugar. There is one repetitive task I've always found therapeutic: the zesting of citrus fruits. Also because I find zested citrus hilarious, like catching one's favorite professor in nightshirt and nightcap.

Though the refrigerator is now stocked with fresh produce, I felt an obligation to clear out some of the food the owner of the house left. Maybe it's the Chinese upbringing in me, but I almost never throw out food, even when the food is bordering on inedible. I've been meaning to use up the goat's milk yogurt left by the owner ever since she left town for sunnier parts three weeks ago, and judging from most of the food she left behind (we found canned food that expired two years ago! that means whatever is in the can is at least a decade old!), that yogurt probably has been sitting in the fridge for longer than I can imagine. But it smelled alright and yogurt keeps for a long time, right? Especially in the fridge. And there's no expiration date, which does NOT mean the date rubbed off, but rather, that it never goes bad.

What I really wanted was cookies, but we deliberately did not get more white sugar in hopes of curbing this baking frenzy we've been on. But alas, the brown sugar was giving me attitude and I just had to show it who's boss. The cake is moist and delicious and despite using only the zest, the grapefruit flavor really came through. I stupidly decided to bake the cake in a small, deep round dish rather than a regular loaf pan, but the cake managed to save itself from my stupidity. It took longer to bake and I obsessively checked it every minute after 15 minutes, but the longer baking time created a thin crispy crust, leaving the cake as moist and light as ever.

ZESTY YOGURT CAKE
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen, the recipe below is half the original)

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• zest of one grapefruit (or lemon or lime, though the grapefruit was perfect for it)
  
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Zest the grapefruit into a bowl and whisk together with brown sugar, yogurt, vanilla and eggs.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Mix thoroughly.

Measure out the oil. Whisk the flour mixture and oil into the sugar/yogurt mixture a little a time, mixing thoroughly and until batter is smooth.

Grease a loaf pan or small casserole dish and pour batter in. Bake for 15-25 minutes, depending on the shallowness of the pan. Cake is done when a knife or toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.