Photo by Vanessa.
My favorite kind of bar is one that serves snacks: peanuts, potato chips, an emergency hot dog, whatever. They’re almost as important as the drinks. At the cozy Brooklyn spot Dynaco, there’s usually a freshly made cake behind the bar. Recently, while my girlfriend and I played cards, I had a slice I hadn’t yet tried: a gingery chocolate cake with a whipped bouffant of cream cheese frosting. I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
Let’s just assume I won this round of Spite & Malice.
Eventually, I tracked down Catherine Lloyd Burns, whose husband started the bar with his brother back in 2013. Catherine bakes all the cakes for Dynaco and fielded an email I’m sure she’s seen many times over the years. “Lots of people have asked for the recipe and I haven’t given it out yet,” she wrote me. “I don’t know if I ever will.” But! She was still very helpful. She told me she started with a Nigella recipe and then “did some altering because I don’t like to just make someone else’s cakes.” But “that particular Nigella cake is perfect” and, she promised, I would be very happy with it.
The next weekend, I grabbed a Guinness from the bodega and gave it a spin. I can’t even remember the last time I baked a cake, so making one is an indicator of how much I loved Catherine’s cake at Dynaco and also how approachable Nigella’s recipe is. Catherine is right about Nigella’s cake; it’s really, really good. Because I’m no star baker, mine looked a little like a children’s bake sale cake, but that did not detract from how good it tasted. The next morning, I had a slice with my coffee.
Breakfast of champions.
As I was sampling the Nigella cake, I wondered if one of Catherine’s modifications was adding a bit of fresh ginger, but both cakes are fantastic. One thing I learned is that British heavy cream has a higher fat content than American heavy cream. My frosting wasn’t quite as “frothy” as I would have liked. But Nigella gives instructions for either heavy cream or whipping cream, and next time I’ll go the whipping cream route. I’m definitely going to make it again. And probably head to Dynaco to see what seasonal cake they’re serving now.
If you’d like to make it yourself, here’s the recipe (NYTimes gift link). “This cake is magnificent in its damp blackness,” says Nigella. “I wanted to make a cream cheese frosting, but it is perfectly acceptable to leave the cake un-iced: in fact, it tastes gorgeous plain.”
Have you ever tracked down a recipe from a restaurant? Or tried to reverse-engineer it? Thank you, Catherine, for tipping us off to this great recipe. New York non-bakers can order one of Catherine’s stout cakes by emailing her directly. It’s $80 and, as I’ve said, wildly delicious.
P.S. The best strawberry cake, Dorie Greenspan’s everything cake, and pound cake with apples, French style.
(Top photo by Vanessa of Kitchen Feasts.)
