This past weekend, it was my boyfriend Erlend's birthday. Although we had a ton of friends in town, we managed to find some time to celebrate his birthday quietly. It's not that we don't love our friends or anything, but more that Erlend's not one for big, extravagant birthdays. Like me, he hates being the center of attention and instead prefers smaller affairs involving a meal at a nice restaurant and a drink at a quiet bar.
Despite the fact that Erlend and I have been dating for nearly four years, I still find it difficult to find him a birthday present. Normally I would go the baked goods route, but when it comes to dessert, we are on the opposite sides of the spectrum. While I love refined sugar and flour and all things sweet, he tends to be healthier and instead prefers to indulge on salty, savory snacks.
A few weeks ago, however, I found myself idly flipping through the Miette Cookbook when I realized Erlend was looking over my shoulder. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at a picture of a beautiful, golden cake covered in what looked like an extremely rich and decadent chocolate frosting.
I read the description out loud: "Bumblebee Cake: a yellow butter cake covered in a bittersweet ganache frosting."
"You should make that. I'd eat it."
I smiled a little bit. The Miette Cookbook has that tendency to pull people in; it's actually one of my favorite cookbooks on my bookshelf. Almost every recipe has a picture of the final product, along with enticing, brightly-lit pictures of Miette's bakeries in San Francisco. Although I'm not a fan of their macarons (which, for some reason, they insist on calling "macaroons" — people, there is a BIG difference between a macaron and a macaroon!!!), I've had a surprising amount of success with the recipes from their cookbook, especially with their cookies and 6-inch cakes.
I scanned through the ingredients for the bumblebee cake, but balked when I saw that the recipe used 5 egg yolks. I tend to avoid recipes that use an excessive number of a specific ingredient. Especially because, well, what was I supposed to do with the leftover 5 egg whites?! I waved Erlend away. "Maybe for a special occasion."
But really, I meant a special occasion... like his birthday!
In many ways, this cake is the perfect cake for Erlend. Dense and buttery with an intense chocolate flavor, it's the perfect combination of some of his favorite flavors and textures.
The cake's yellow color is completely natural, coming from an almost obscene amount of both butter and egg yolks. Because the cake uses 5 egg yolks, its texture is extremely dense and hearty, similar to that of a pound cake. Buttery to the point of almost tasting a little bit salty, it holds up wonderfully against the incredibly intensely decadent chocolate frosting — which is so good that it deserves a paragraph of its own.
Miette calls this frosting a "ganache", but originally, I felt like that it was a bit of a misnomer. I tend to think of ganaches as runny, shiny chocolate glazes, but this recipe produced a thick and pliable mixture similar to regular frosting. In any case, I was wrong — according to Wikipedia, a ganache simply refers to any mixture that involves warm cream being poured over chocolate. This recipe does exactly that, with almost 2 parts chocolate to 1 part cream, producing an extremely decadent and rich chocolate frosting. There's not too much added sugar here — the flavor profile is chocolate all the way, providing an awesome compliment to the cake's salty, buttery flavor.
This is one of those cakes that, after I took a bite, I just sighed. Sometimes, it's good to be a food blogger.
Also, Erlend loved the cake.
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