Dark Chocolate & Cinnamon Plum Cake
with a whipped cinnamon cream
Hello and welcome to The Big Night In. We talk recipes, restaurants, and the occasional bit of drivel. If somehow you have slipped into my house and are still not subscribed, don’t worry, we can fix that:
Hi chooks, I hope this newsletter finds you warm and comfortable. Just quickly, my thoughts have been on Usha Vance’s pink coat, the Baldoni v Lively spilt milk, and whether I’ve been flogging tiktok for nothing. You too? Cool.
I’m giving your inbox a workout this week as I’m dropping 40+ summer recipes into your lap (1 email, 40 recipes, don’t worry) soon. They’re really good, mostly easy, quite affordable, and I’m sure I could chuck some other adverbs in there too.
In case you needed to know before reading, there is a juicy sofa chat below that includes where to go for a deep dive on the Lively/Reynolds/Baldoni saga, am I morally compromised, and a discussion question about Gen-Z that I really want a reader to answer in the chat.
If you’re not sat in a sofa, feet-up, cock or mock-tail in hand, then this won’t be as fun to read, but it’s fine.
Are the younger gen zs (older gen alphas) too tame? Other than sucking a vape within an inch of its life, I’m hearing snippets that the new teens are behaving like old biddies. Discuss.
The Baldoni/Lively/Reynolds/Khaleesi drama is the story that keeps on giving, and @devotedly.yours is my favourite narrator. Nuha is an entertainment creator combing through the nearly 200-page lawsuit against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. She keeps it concise, engaging, and sometimes biased but it’s all there. If you haven’t been paying attention, Lively referred to herself as Khaleesi, and threatened to use Taylor Swift as one of her dragons if she didn’t get what she wanted. Before a man tells me this is a waste of my time, I have learned why civil suits are filed, what it takes to convict someone of harassment, and to never overestimate your influence on the public. What did the Super Bowl teach you?
Everyone is convinced Elon Musk is going to eventually snap up tiktok, he’ll probably name it Z3TA after some illegitimate child, and unlike Twitter, I don’t think I’ll as easily be able to give it up. Buying from Temu and now this?The lines of my moral compass grow ever fuzzier. Did I mention I like looking at Usha Vance?
I’ve just discovered GraphicAudio’s library of dramatized audiobooks. I’ve never ‘read’ faster in my life - it’s like a movie in your head, complete with sound effects, different voices, and OTT readings (j’adore).
Just quickly, Ayan Artan’s article in defense of pretension argues for shaming idiots - I’m paraphrasing a little maybe. The crux (among other bits): a bit of pretension to ensure literacy rates stop declining is a good thing. I agree - don’t let a dafty sit at your lunch table and maybe the world will start to right itself.
Now onto chocolate with plums.
I talk about stone fruit as often and as frenetically as possible. I know why; I’ve done the work; I’m at peace with it. It’s not a secret that I grew up in Asia but just in case you’re new here: I grew up in Asia. South-East Asia to be precise (barring my short stint in South Korea). Which means I ate lychees, and rambutan, and fleshy mangoes, and fat pomelos, and (regrettably) durian. I never ate stone fruit.
When I came home to New Zealand I would avoid peaches, nectarines, plums, and especially apricots. Then I grew up, left Asia, discovered a ripe nectarine, and my world has never been the same.
This cake was made for plums (but it’s interchangeable with many-a fruit). Perfect now or a perfect way to hold on to summer and use up the last of the plums (plums that are a bit bruised, a bit tart, not-prime-but-still-very-good). It’s a fudgy, dark chocolate, brownie-like cake. It’s the slow death of a good summer, which will ease you into citrus season, which will somehow knock you into steaming-cabbage-stew season.
The Recipe
Dark Chocolate & Cinnamon Plum Cake
To me, this is a very adult cake; call it a brownie though, and your kids will get on board. It’s tart, sophisticated, deeply chocolatey, and restrained (only two tablespoons of flour you say?). There is a complete lack of leavening agents - your baking powders, baking sodas, and yeasts - which means dense (not too dense) is the name of the game here. I do think it’s important you know i’m not opposed to a non-adult cake, a child’s cake, a cake children would love. Three-layered vanilla cakes are still exciting to me. I have never tried the famous milk bar birthday cake, but I’ll have my birthday in New York one day just to try it*. It’s just that this particular cake is for when you want to feel like you drank a long black, vacuumed under the bed, and did your taxes early. You do not have to have done any of those mind you, but this cake will earn you praise from anyone who regularly completes a crossword; and that feels so good I can’t tell you.
*I wrote this paragraph before my NYC trip & I actually got to try the famous milk bar birthday cake. It was so sweet but still happy-tear perfect.
It’s the perfect cake to bring out at a relaxed dinner party, a small backyard barbecue, or an afternoon tea occasion. A small piece goes a long way, and the addition of the chocolate cream is, to my mind, crucial. It provides levity to the density and richness of the cake (tart). If you’ve ever had a Mexican hot chocolate, this feels like that in some ways. A stabilized cream (which this cream is) has a stabilizing agent (gelatin) to keep it from succumbing to the elements. It won’t melt easily, won’t fall flat, and has a better, more opulent texture than regular whipped cream. It’s almost like a clotted cream or a mascarpone. How adult of us.
Chocolate Cream (Stabilized Cream)
3g gelatin powder
18g cold water
140g dark chocolate (110g dark chocolate if using double cream)
450g cream (500g double/heavy cream)
1 tsp flakey sea salt
2 tsp cinnamon, plus more for dusting
1/4 cup icing sugar, plus more for dusting
Cake
200 grams dark chocolate (70%), roughly chopped
227 grams (1 cup) unsalted butter
104 grams (1/2) cup packed brown sugar (plus 3 tablespoons for sprinkling)
100 grams (1/2) cup white sugar (100g)
1 teaspoon Flakey sea salt
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract (or 1/2 teaspoon paste)
5-7 small, very ripe plums(or any stone fruit), halved or thinly sliced, pit removed
4 medium-large eggs, whisked
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Chocolate Cream
In a glass bowl, melt the chocolate over a simmering pot of water - don’t let the water touch the bottom of the bowl, this could cause the chocolate to burn & clump up. Whisk in the salt & cinnamon. Set aside. Melting the chocolate can also be done in the microwave, but it burns easier - melt in 30 second increments and stir after each round until just melted.
Mix the gelatin powder with cold water & set aside for 5 minutes to bloom.
Heat the cream in a pot until just simmering then pour through a sieve into the melted chocolate. Whisk until the mixture comes together. Cover with cling film, making sure the plastic is touching the surface (this helps to stop the cream forming a ’skin’). Leave to chill in the fridge overnight.
Using an electric whisk, beat in the icing sugar until you have a medium-stiff peak.
Cake
Preheat the oven to 170c. Set a 25cm (10in) non-stick pie tin or cake tin aside.
Add the chopped chocolate to a large heatproof bowl & set aside.
Heat the butter in a medium-sized pot. Let the butter melt & begin to brown. Using a spoon or whisk, scrape the browned bits (milk solids) off the bottom & swirl the butter around in the pot. When the butter is deeply golden brown & smelling nutty, remove from the heat and pour about 4 tablespoons onto the bottom of your pie tin. Pour the rest of the butter over the chopped chocolate.
Let the chocolate and butter sit for 1 minute then stir well until all of the chocolate has melted & become homogenous with the butter.
Whisk in the sugars, sea salt, & vanilla. Leave to cool until nearly room temperature.
Meanwhile, sprinkle the 3 tablespoons of brown sugar over the base of the pie tin. Layer your slices of plum to cover the bottom of the tin.
Whisk in a 1/4 cup of the chocolate mixture to the eggs to temper them. Then stream the whisked eggs into the rest of the chocolate mixture, mixing as you go (you want to be quick so that any residual heat doesn’t cook the eggs).
Fold through the flour & cinnamon until combined. Pour the mixture over the plums into the pie tin. Smooth out the top with a spatula or butter knife.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the centre is firm but not solid (depending on the pan/oven this can look more like 30-35 minutes). Jiggle the pain slightly, if the centre doesn’t move, it’s ready.
Leave to cool completely on a rack in the tin. Cover & set in the fridge. Slice the cake and heat it up or eat it cold, either way, delicious.
Serve with the chocolate whipped cream (and maybe some cinnamon icing sugar if you have the energy).
Notes
I feel comfortable calling for powdered gelatin because it is now widely available (and cheap) at most supermarkets.
I always use 72% Whittakers Dark Chocolate for baking. If you are outside of New Zealand then Callebaut, Lindt, Godiva, or Old Gold are all good substitutes. There are pricier options but don’t go for the highly bitter or super cheap options. It will make a difference.
In NZ we have single cream, fresh cream, & double (heavy) cream. When making a stabilized cream, double is often preferred but not always easy to find, I have included how to use both. Single/cooking cream won’t whip up so please don’t use it.