Playing dress-up

Some days, I think one of Gillian's most treasured possessions is a $5 pair of plastic purple dress-up shoes.  We have a collection of fancy princess dresses, but it's the shoes and the cheap plastic jewelry that get the most use.  And just about any bag gets turned into a purse, filled with a collection of Fisher Price Little People, play kitchen utensils, baby doll clothes, cell phones (toys or my old ones) and empty makeup containers (also begged from me).  There's no question this is a house of girls.  =)

And who doesn't like to play dress-up sometimes?  As I've progressed as a food blogger, one of the things I hope I've improved at is dressing up my baked goods and making them look good for their glamour shots.  This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is perfect for that--it's even in the recipe title, Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake.  This fun selection comes from Amy of Amy Ruth Bakes.

The cake was pretty straightforward to mix up--it's basically a chocolate pound cake, mixed using the creaming method.  I deviated from the recipe only in the assembly.  For one thing, I prefer the look of the cake in its original orientation, rather than turned upside-down as Dorie suggests.  (I'm the same way with angel food cake.)  When I sliced through the cake to make the first layer, I realized that I'd only cut about a quarter of the cake, rather than a third.  So my cake ended up with four layers rather than three to keep things even.  For the filling, I used my favorite raspberry fruit butter. And as for frosting, I like chocolate and sour cream, but was feeling lazy.  So I topped my cake with some leftover ganache that I had in the fridge.  Easy, and fun to drizzle. =)

The verdict?  I thought the cake was pretty good, and it seemed to be well received when I shared some of it at work.  It had a dense, moist texture. Not overly chocolatey, but nice, especially with the raspberry to add a tart contrast.  Brianna and Gillian really liked it.  They kept asking for it for dessert every night until it was all gone.  

If you'd like to give this cake a try, head over to Amy's blog for the recipe.  And check out the Leave Your Links post for this week to see how everyone else did with this recipe!