The Secret Lair

Happy Bastille Day everyone!¹ Here at the Secret Lair we like a good overthrowing, so long as the Overlords are the ones doing the overthrowing.² It also warms the cockles of the Overlords’ hearts when possible overlording competition is removed, even if said competition is over 200 years in the past.³

In celebration of this fine occasion, the Overlords proclaim that there should be cake. Cake that must be eaten.⁴

Without further ado, we present The Secret Lair Let Them Eat Cake Cake.⁵

The Secret Lair Let Them Eat Cake Cake Recipe⁶

Ingredients:

• 3-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 packages or yeast (3/4 oz)
• 1/3 cup milk
• 5 large eggs
• 12-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (the darker the better)
• 1 package cream cheese frosting, divided into three batches
• red and blue food coloring

Instructions:

1. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in a bowl⁷.
2. Add the milk and eggs, mixing until all the flour is incorporated.⁸
3. Knead the dough until it’s uniformly mixed and smooth and sides o f the bowl become clean (5- 10 minutes).
4. Cut the butter into small pieces. Add the butter to the dough slowly, only a few pieces at a time, mixing the dough until everything is incorporated.
5. Knead the dough until there are no more chunks of butter, and the sides of the bowl become clean. The dough will become very smooth. This may take up to 15 minutes. You may need to add a little bit more flour, one tablespoon at a time to achieve this.
6. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place it in a warm place (room temp.) for 2-3 hours or until the dough doubles in size.
7. Gently punch down the dough to deflate. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on the surface and place a piece of plastic wrap against the surface.
8. Cover the bowl well with plastic wrap again and place in the fridge until the dough doubles again (another 2-3 hours).
9. Deflate the dough again, extract it from the bowl, form it into a ball an d wrap with plastic wrap. Leave in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight.
10. Hooray! The dough is ready to be formed!
11. Butter a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.Roll out the dough into a large rectangle that is about 7-8″ on its shortest side and 1/2″-1″ thick.
12. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the surface of the rectangle, leaving some free space at one of the short ends. Roll the dough in on itself (like you’re rolling a rug⁹ ), covering the chocolate chips with the dough. Once you reach the end, pinch the dough to seal the ends.
13. Place the loaf in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot until it doubles in size (again 2-3 hours).
14. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
15. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until dark golden. Turn out onto a rack. Thump the bottom – if it sounds hollow, the loaf is done. If not, put back in pan and cook for another 5 minutes.
16. Cool to room temp. on a rack.
17. Add blue food coloring to 1/3 of the frosting and mix until the color is uniform. Add red food coloring to 1/3 of the frosting mix until the color is uniform. Leave the last 1/3 white.
18. When the loaf is cool to the touch, frost the top of the loaf with one stripe of blue, white, and red like the French flag.
19. Et voila! C’est magnifique! Qu’ils mangent de la brioche!

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1. Or at least those of you with an ounce or two of French-ish heritage. Or at least those of you that wished to had some sort of French-ish heritage. Or at least those of you who enjoy a croissant now and then. [↩]
2. As opposed to underthrowing. Although I hear those are fun too, but not as noisy. [↩]
3. Our scientists tell us they almost have all the bugs worked out of the Pogo Time Ball [↩]
4. OK. So for all you technical technicality technicians, the historical quote was actually “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche“. We know and we don’t care. I mean, brioche is sort of cake like anyway. [↩]
5. Or TSLLTECC for all you acronym junkies out there. [↩]
6. Technically brioche. You win this time, technical technicality technicians! Also, our scientists haven’t actually tested out this recipe yet, so, good luck. We’re fairly certain it’s non-explosive. [↩]
7. If you have a mixer with a dough hook, that will save you a lot of time and avoid cook’s cramp. [↩]
8. If using a mixer, you may need to stop it and scrape down the sides to get everything mixed in. [↩]
9. or a toilet paper roll [↩]

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Tags: bastille day, brioche, cake, recipe

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at 7:03 pm and is filed under Featured Articles, Monologuing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.