In Pursuit of the Ultimate Chocolate Cake, with Helen Goh

Things Bakers Know: The King Arthur Baking Podcast

Season four of Things Bakers Know opens with hosts Jessica Badalana and David T. Markin exploring the cultural and technical quest for the ultimate chocolate cake. They interview James Beard Award-winning author Helen

Key takeaways

Helen Goh's famous 'world's best chocolate cake' is actually disliked by her own family because she finds it too rich and heavy.
King Arthur recipe developer Molly Marslet Kelly tested over a dozen formulas to create the ideal 'house chocolate cake.'

Main topics

Chocolate cake recipe development and science
Baking as therapy and community building

Notable quotes

"I think of chocolate cake as not one category, but a kind of major category from which there are loads of other types of chocolate cake."

Conclusion

Listeners walk away with actionable baking techniques while gaining a deeper

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, this is Christopher Kimball from Milk Street Radio. Every week we travel the world to find the best food stories and recipes, and often that means baking. From interviews with bake-off legends Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood, to answering our listeners' toughest questions with Stella Parks and Cheryl Day, to learning about pastries from the Philippines to cantaloupe cream pie from the American South. For baking stories, calls, and interviews, find Milk Street Radio and Apple Podcasts or visit MilkStreetRadio.com. Speaker 3 (0:30) Hey, bakers, before we get into the episode, I need to tell you something. You already know that King Arthur has a legendary baking school in Vermont and Washington State. Well, a few years ago, we launched a new way to take classes from our world-class educators. You can take these classes anytime, anywhere. It's called Baking School On Demand. And guess what? Things bakers know listeners get a discount. Use code POD25 for 25 % off your first order. That's P-O-D-2-5 for 25 % off. If you can believe that. It's a deal of the century, but you got to hurry because it expires on January 1st, 2027. Pick up a class for yourself or one of your friends or your dog at kingarthurbaking.com. Okay, now let's get Jessica in here and start the episode. Is the idea that people are going to put the cake in the casket and you're going to be buried with all these cakes? Speaker 4 (1:23) From King Arthur Baking Company, this is Things Bakers Know. I'm Jessica Badalana, employee owner at King Arthur Baking. And Speaker 3 (1:31) I'm David T. Markin, employee owner at King Arthur Baking. And today, we're back. We're Speaker 4 (1:36) back. With another Speaker 3 (1:36) season. I was going to say season three, Speaker 4 (1:38) but it's in fact season four. Speaker 3 (1:40) Who knows anymore? Like Speaker 4 (1:41) Sam's through the hourglass. Speaker 3 (1:44) And we're talking about a very special baked good chocolate cake. Speaker 4 (1:53) I'm glad that we're starting the season with chocolate cake because I feel like finally we have something that I can talk about with both passion and authority. Expertise. You know, that's not always the case. You are Speaker 3 (2:03) an expert in this. I Speaker 4 (2:04) mean, I like to fancy myself an expert. I guess maybe I'm an expert enthusiast. No, I think you're Speaker 3 (2:08) an actual expert. I mean, you have a chocolate cake recipe that you developed, that you are in love with, that you stand behind. Speaker 4 (2:15) Well, I guess I am an expert, and here's why. Last summer... I got a call from my friend Tamar Adler. So Tamar is a cookbook author. Speaker 3 (2:22) Name drop, okay. Name drop. She Speaker 4 (2:24) also writes a cooking column or food column for Vogue. And she was writing an article for Vogue about chocolate cake. Because she had been spending some time in Spain. I know. That sounds great. And she went past a bakery that had a sign in the window that said, World's Best Chocolate Cake. Speaker 3 (2:46) So, of course, she goes in to get this world's best chocolate cake. This is a very common claim, by the way. I Speaker 4 (2:51) think it is. Everybody thinks that their Speaker 3 (2:53) chocolate cake is the world's best. Speaker 4 (2:55) Yeah. So, this baker in Madrid has a sign. I'm Speaker 3 (2:58) already Speaker 4 (2:58) angry. And she gets the cake, and she's describing the cake to me. And she said it was layers of chocolate meringue, sandwiched with, like, a chocolate cream, and then the whole thing is covered in ganache. Speaker 3 (3:08) And Speaker 4 (3:09) I said, that sounds delicious, and it also does not sound like a chocolate cake. Speaker 3 (3:13) Agree. Speaker 4 (3:14) I was like, it is a cake that is chocolate-ish. But that led Tamara and I to sort of go down the rabbit hole. And that was sort of like the point of this article was like, what is the world's best chocolate cake? Or Speaker 3 (3:27) what even is chocolate cake? What Speaker 4 (3:30) is life even? Speaker 3 (3:32) Extension to what is life? Speaker 4 (3:34) And I told her when I think about chocolate cake, I don't picture anything like the chocolate cake that she is describing from this bakery in Madrid. I think of like a two or four layer. plush, crumbed. cake, cake cake. You just skip Speaker 3 (3:47) over the three layer? Yeah. Speaker 4 (3:49) Three is fine. Never three. With lots of frosting. Okay. You know, like a chocolate birthday cake is what I think of as a chocolate cake. Speaker 3 (3:57) Yeah. And Speaker 4 (3:58) that is my ideal chocolate cake. And I did publish a recipe for that style of chocolate cake in my cookbook repertoire. I didn't call it world's best because, you know, humility. Yankee humility. If there's Speaker 3 (4:10) anything you're known for, it's humility. Speaker 4 (4:12) Wow. Speaker 3 (4:13) I don't know. Speaker 4 (4:16) So it is a creamed butter cake. I believe Speaker 3 (4:18) in that same chapter in your book, you're like, I don't know. I wasn't going to include chocolate chip cookies, but I decided mine are the best. So here's another chocolate chip cookie recipe. Yeah, I think I have the world's best chocolate chip Speaker 4 (4:27) cookies if memory serves. So I couldn't use it twice. Then it starts to seem a little fake. But it's a creamed butter cake. It has cocoa. It has chocolate. And then it has this chocolate frosting, which is basically a ganache. So cream and chocolate. And then you add softened butter to it. You whisk in softened butter. So you get this like really... glossy, luxurious frosting. So that is what I think of when I think of chocolate cake. Side note, I recently just finished my estate plan. Okay, great. Speaker 3 (4:55) I mean, this is important to do. This Speaker 1 (4:57) is Speaker 3 (4:57) important. I have not done mine yet. You Speaker 4 (4:59) have Speaker 3 (4:59) not? No. David. I don't have kids. Well, Speaker 4 (5:02) just you can just leave it all to my Speaker 3 (5:03) kids. Speaker 4 (5:03) My Speaker 3 (5:03) kids are the Speaker 4 (5:03) listeners of the podcast. Because we're going to need to double down on. So we finished our estate plan and... I will say they got into some real granular detail. Like, of course, you know, you're like, where do you want your money to go? Sure, all that stuff. But then on page like 16, they're like, what songs do you want played at your funeral? Speaker 3 (5:20) Oh, God. I mean, I don't want songs. Everyone's going to be crying. You're not going to hear the songs. Speaker 4 (5:24) And I was like, can I fill this in later? Or do I need to? Speaker 3 (5:29) Yeah, your musical taste could completely change. I Speaker 4 (5:31) know. Anyway, so I have been thinking about that a lot, what songs. But then I was like, well, I don't know what songs to play. But I feel like I do know what, this is so depressing, but I was like, people could make this cake. Like maybe there should be lots of chocolate cake at my funeral. Speaker 3 (5:50) So you're dictating in your will that at your funeral people must make this cake? I mean, I Speaker 4 (5:56) haven't dictated, but it just seems like if you're going to ask about what songs, maybe you want to ask about the food. Like maybe you should write in some details about that. Speaker 3 (6:04) Is the idea that people are going to... Put the cake in the casket and you're going to be buried with all these Speaker 4 (6:09) cakes? Or Speaker 3 (6:09) are we going to be feeding the... Speaker 4 (6:13) Well, this is now taking a turn. We Speaker 3 (6:15) can get Speaker 4 (6:15) really. This Speaker 3 (6:15) is Speaker 4 (6:15) taking a turn. Speaker 3 (6:16) Yes, it has. I mean, there's nothing I like more than talking about death and planning for death. I mean, we Speaker 4 (6:21) don't Speaker 3 (6:21) think about it enough. Speaker 4 (6:22) No, we don't. And I Speaker 3 (6:23) actually appreciate that you're thinking about the cake part because that would bring a level of joy and would really speak to who you are as a person. Yeah. You know, it would really be a celebration of who you are. So I hope that I'm not there. I don't want to be there. You know, I want to die first is what I'm saying. Yeah, okay. I would hate to see you. Perish. But if I am there, I will bring the cake. You'll Speaker 4 (6:46) see Speaker 3 (6:46) this Speaker 4 (6:46) through. Speaker 3 (6:46) I will bring the cake. Yes, I'll see it through. Okay. And I will be happy. Speaker 4 (6:50) Yeah. I mean, I think so. Yeah. It'll Speaker 3 (6:52) be a celebratory moment. Speaker 4 (6:54) So, wow. Wow. Speaker 3 (6:56) Welcome to season four. Speaker 4 (6:58) Where we tackle some of the bigger issues. We are. Speaker 3 (7:01) I will just warn. listeners that Jessica and I are in existential moods lately. So this is going to be an existential, this is going to Speaker 1 (7:08) be. Speaker 3 (7:08) This is midlife. I mean, I just told you Speaker 4 (7:11) before we started recording that I got my ears pierced again. So all the red flags are starting to flap in the breeze, you know. Speaker 3 (7:19) Way Speaker 4 (7:19) back in season one, we were talking, in our birthday cake episode, we were talking about sort of our platonic ideal of a birthday cake. And at that point, you did invoke a chocolate cake. A flourless chocolate cake. And so I'm wondering, is that sort of your platonic ideal when I say world's best chocolate cake? Speaker 3 (7:36) No. I mean, I remember talking about that cake and saying that, you know, as I get older, I kind of just want simpler, single-layer cakes. But when I just hear the word chocolate cake, I think of something very much like what you described. Yeah. Because that's what I grew up with of chocolate cake. And, you know, it was a birthday cake. Yeah. My mom made a very classic cake that, of course... we were all obsessed with as kids. And, you know, and then as we grew up, we wanted to make it and thought it was like this gourmet thing. It turns out it was like ripped from the back of some box of like some Hershey's cocoa box Oreo. One of these Speaker 1 (8:09) old school classic, Speaker 3 (8:10) you know, cookbooks. It's very simple, very classic chocolate cake. That's what I, that's what I think of. Speaker 4 (8:14) Well, and you know, I think you speak to something that Tamara also talked about in that Vogue article. She spoke to Queen. Dory Greenspan. And, you know, Dory was saying that nostalgia has a lot to do with what people consider to be their perfect chocolate cake, which I think is true. Growing up, my aunt used to make this cake, which has a great name. It's called Tommy Torbett's Mother's Chocolate Cake. Tommy Torbett was a kid, poor Tommy Torbett, what a name, Speaker 3 (8:40) was Speaker 4 (8:41) a kid that my cousins went to school with. Speaker 3 (8:43) And Speaker 4 (8:43) the recipe came from his mother. It's like a cocoa cake. And she used to do it with like a white frosting. Speaker 3 (8:50) And Speaker 1 (8:50) I think of that as, Speaker 4 (8:51) it is controversial, but I sort of like, I think about that cake and I'm like, yeah, it's just, it's just a solid chocolate cake. Speaker 3 (8:57) I feel like they're two different things. I feel like in this episode, we got to nail down what we're actually talking about, right? Because I think we're, I think what we are talking about is our layer cakes, because I think I'm getting the sense from you, especially that if I say, oh, this like, here's a chocolate souffle cake, you know, one of these cakes that's just. Almost no flour or only a little bit of flour. It's really just eggs, butter, and tons of chocolate. Very delicious. Very Speaker 4 (9:24) delicious. Speaker 3 (9:24) Not what we're talking about. Not chocolate cake. You would call that, I think, something else. Flourless chocolate cake? The chocolate death cake. Chocolate death cake. So it was like chocolate birthday cake and chocolate funeral cake. Yeah. Speaker 4 (9:36) And I do love those, the ones that you're describing, the sort of souffle style. But I do think about it as a different thing. But you did some research about sort of the origins of like a chocolate layer cake or a chocolate cake as we are talking about it in this episode. Speaker 3 (9:49) I did. And honestly, it didn't sound like chocolate cake at all. Here's what I saw. You know, this was a cake recipe published in America in 1880. in Eliza Leslie's book, The Lady's Receipt Book. I'm going to give you the ingredients and you tell me, is this a chocolate cake? Three ounces of unsweetened chocolate, 10 eggs. Tons of butter, tons of sugar, an entire grated nutmeg? I don't, how would you even do that? Especially in 1847, when microplanes didn't exist, how would you even do that? Speaker 4 (10:19) That sounds, well. Speaker 3 (10:21) But, you know, I mean, that's not a lot of chocolate for all that other stuff. And, Speaker 4 (10:26) you know, it reminds me of something one of my kids once told me when they didn't want to eat something I'd made. They said, I don't have to taste it to know that it's bad. Speaker 3 (10:35) Right. Speaker 4 (10:36) Three ounces of unsweetened chocolate does not a chocolate cake make. Speaker 3 (10:39) You can picture this cake, right? It's light brown. And it's not what I want in my chocolate cake. I want a very dark cake. But I also don't want like a black cake. Like, I don't want a cake made with our black cocoa because that's going too far. It's too bitter. But again, to your point, people, different people have different ideas. And whatever you grew up with is the chocolate cake that you crave. Speaker 4 (11:00) Well, we interestingly, so we're working on a cookbook that will be out next fall. It's a great book. And we wanted to put in, you know how people have the idea of like house wine? Like they're like, oh, our house wine is. They Speaker 3 (11:12) said house swine. Speaker 4 (11:14) Not in my house. That's very Lena Dunham of you. House wine. Speaker 3 (11:17) House wine, yes. Speaker 4 (11:19) House wine. And I was like, well, wouldn't it, like, what about this idea of, like, house vanilla and house chocolate cake? Like, I think people want that. They want, like, the go-to recipe that it's like, it's a birthday. This is what I make. And so we were sort of noodling around with this, like, house cake idea. And that led one of our recipe developers, Molly Marslet Kelly, to bake, I don't know. I mean, she tried, like, a dozen. different formulas for chocolate cake, some from King Arthur archives, some from other bakers. And she did like a lot of side by side by side comparisons. And it was very illuminating. Sorry, you weren't invited. I Speaker 3 (11:57) never, I put in a new policy recently to always be invited, even if you don't want me there. But yeah, I imagine there were cakes that were only butter, cakes that were butter and oil, cakes made with only cocoa, cakes made with cocoa and chocolate. Cakes made with coffee? Speaker 4 (12:11) Yeah. Speaker 3 (12:12) Which I think is a great move. Speaker 4 (12:14) Yep. Speaker 3 (12:14) What I found in, you know, when I've worked with test kitchens developing chocolate cake recipes is that the addition of coffee or even just hot water, but something about the hot liquid really does something to the batter. And maybe it's blooming the cocoa in the batter. I don't know what it's doing. I'm Speaker 4 (12:30) not Speaker 3 (12:30) the scientist here at King Arthur, but I find that to be usually successful. So where did we land? Speaker 4 (12:37) You know, it landed sort of in the Switzerland of chocolate cakes, I would say. So we like the flavor of butter because it's delicious. But a chocolate cake made only with butter tends to taste drier. Speaker 3 (12:49) So Speaker 4 (12:50) we added both butter and oil. So then you get like that really plush, almost like box cake-like crumb to it. But you get the good flavor of butter. Cocoa, I think, is a great addition to a chocolate cake, but it is a very, as you said, like a very drying ingredient. Like it's pulling moisture out. So that's why I think that chocolate