Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Salt
Health Canada tells us to eat less salt.
That's all fine and dandy, but instead why don't they just tell us to stop eating processed food. For crying out loud, if 80% of our salt intake is found in processed food, it would make sense to recommend that we stop eating it.
If I was Health Canada, or anything of any import in the nutritional food world I would tell people to:
STOP EATING PROCESSED FOOD AND THEREBY CUT YOUR FAT AND SALT INTAKE BY MASSIVE AMOUNTS
Not to mention that you might actually get some vitamins and all that stuff from the regular food you would have to eat if you stopped eating crap.
Let me stress that as I type this little rant I am eating potato chips. I'm not a puritan...far from it.
Yesterday morning I took my 3 year old for breakfast, and much to his delight, we had Bittersweet Chocolate Buttercream Cake. This was for reseach purposes, so that the Underground Baker is on par with other cakes in the city.
This little chocolate number was from Sweet Obsession. It was a three layer cake with two thick stripes of buttercream filling and a slim little exterior of buttercream icing. The top was smooth in looks to show off the buttercream I suppose, and the side was covered with chocolate shavings.
The buttercream had a nice chocolate flavour, with a kind of dry chocolate taste that must have come from the bittersweet chocolate. For my taste the buttercream overwhelmed the cake. It also didn't have the satiny mouth-feel that I find so sexy and addictive in some buttercreams. Perhaps some of that satin sensation was sacrificed to give it a stronger chocolate flavour.
The cake was too dry for what looked like a devil's food style cake, (versus a genoise style cake that is supposed to be dryish and always moistened with syrup). This is the risk of serving cake slices. The cake, as mentioned before, was overwhelmed by the buttercream. A cake with more substance, or a syrup added to punch up the taste may have served better. Or a thinner layer of buttercream with the same cake, (albeit, fresher).
All that said, we ate it in no time flat.

Cake Review
Sweet Obsessions, Trafalger and 16th Ave, Vancouver

Bittersweet Chocolate Cake
For breakfast: OK.
With coffee in the afternoon when you are very hungry: Good.
Late Evening after a few drinks: Excellent
Decor: I could care less in the morning.
Service: Friendly.

4 Comments:

Blogger Candy Minx said...

ooh, nice. The cake doesn't sound chocolatey or moist enough, even at a distance. Devils food cake and black forest cake are too much like cocoa powder.

Stagg had the most amazing chocolate cake(after your flourless chocolate cake that is) at Buddy Guys Legends. Black chocolate with kahlua drizzled all over it. Really, I've been thinking about this cake since Friday.

Love the idea of a cake review, very fun. It is difficult to make a butter cream also have strong chocolate flavour. Maybe if some Godiva liquer was used?

9:18 PM  
Blogger mister anchovy said...

tahe idea of cake at Legends is interesting....I don't think I've even thought about dessert in that place. The food is surprisingly good there though, so I suppose the dessert should be as well. + you get to hear some live Chicago blues.

9:23 PM  
Blogger Gardenia said...

MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmm, chocolate cake -

I had a good one the other day - it was an oatmeal cake - heavy and delicious.

Taking your 3 year old son for cake breakfast reminded me of my mother. My friends liked to spend the night because my mother let us eat cake and pies for breakfast.

And I wonder why I have a borderline eating disorder.

Has anyone tried a really moist devil's food with orange icing? Make the orange icing with powdered sugar, a hunk of real butter, and then add frozen orange juice concentrate until spreadable. yum. My kids call it "4th of July cake."

8:57 PM  
Blogger Underground Baker said...

Diana, that sounds good...the concentrate is a great idea, and I bet it could easily be added to all kinds of icing.

10:02 AM  

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