Cooking for Book Club: Five-Spice Cake with Ginger Ice Milk (Plus Back-Up)

So at this point, I’m clearly the delinquent of Book Club.

For one thing, nearly everybody else has mortgages and is about to breed or is already caring for other, smaller humans.  While I, on the other hand, have lingering unpaid library fines, still find it a tightrope act to maintain an adequate level of clean underthings every week and am thrilled when I make myself eat a vegetable. 

Beyond that, I haven’t actually read the book in like a year.   I pretty much just show up, drink wine, and play Contrary Mary to debate topics in books I didn’t actually finish.  (Other than the wine part, this is also how I managed to make it through honors classes in high school with decent grades without ever actually doing any homework.) 

This time I couldn’t even, apparently, be bothered put up the pretense of buying the book we were supposed to read.  I’m running out of “I have a million jobs!!!!  I don’t have time!!!” juice as an excuse, so this time I tried to pretend it was because I secretly don’t know how to read. In response to this, everyone pointed out I’m a writer.  I protested that I’m just overcompensating for my illiteracy (what better camouflage??!), but they weren’t buying it.

Clearly, I’m more into the “Club” than the “Book” part at this point.  It’s not even just the book for Book Club; I am so in this manic must-fix-my-life-right-now!!!!! phase I don’t have the patience to read a book for just pleasure anyway.  Which is kind of devastating, since books have pretty much been my life for much of it.

But anyway, I am going to persist in attending Book Club even if this not-reading continues, so long as the more responsible members don’t get totally aggravated and toss me out.  Because – beyond the enjoyable company – the main great thing about Book Club is I can use it as an excuse to cook for other people, something I don’t get to do as often as I’d like.

This cycle we’re reading books on China, so we have been eating some Chinese-themed meals.  Other than a few Thai and Indian sticky-rice-in-coconut-milk type of dessert, I am not a huge fan of most Asian desserts.  Let’s face it: I really only ever want cake and ice cream.  At any meal.

Ergo, I volunteered to bring cake and ice cream for our meeting last weekend, but decided that in order to at least participate in the theme of Book Club if not the actual mission, I’d make my cake and ice cream with an Asian-flavored influence.

I searched for a Five Spice Cake recipe and found this Five Spice Tea Cake recipe on Food Network.  There was this other Asian Five Spice Chocolate (Flourless) cake on Epicurious, but it was so complicated (water baths, fancy egg maneuvers) that although I bought a $10 chocolate bar with which I planned to make it as well, I ran out of time.

I doubled the tea cake recipe so that I could make it in my new favorite thing: a Bundt pan. I don’t know if Bundt cakes are consider charmingly retro or merely passé, but I like them a lot.  I enjoy a regular cake, but the denser, heartier texture of a Bundt cake I think allows you to use a little less sweet and a little more spice or flavor than you might want to with the delicate crumb of a regular cake.

The recipe originally called for a 6-cup loaf pan, so I figured by doubling the recipe for a 12-cup Bundt cake, I was in the clear.  Nevertheless, the interior did seem to take an awful long time to cook, and there were a few darkened spots on the outside although it did not dry out.  (I am thinking the cooking might have been also complicated by use of silicone mold as I think these do change the way things cook; seems like insides take much longer.)

When I unmolded the cake, I became a little apprehensive.  Five Spice mixtures can vary but it seems like they usually contain either fennel or anise.  Both of these spices taste strongly of black licorice, and I turned the cake out onto the rack to cool, the overall scent was black licorice. I like black licorice, but it’s just not a flavor I want to dominate in something like a Bundt cake.  So I wasn’t feeling too confident.

To go with my questionable cake, I made a Fresh Ginger Ice Cream Milk. I based it on the Fresh Ginger Ice Cream from The Perfect Scoop, but instead of using a custard recipe (which involves the complication of eggs, etc.), I decided to just use the simpler Philadelphia style.  I infused some sugar, milk and cream with slices of blanched fresh ginger, steeped for a while, then removed the slices right before I put into the maker.  A few minutes before the ice cream was done, I add a couple teaspoons of finely-chopped crystallized ginger.

Because I was unsure how all of this would taste, I did have a back-up. I have decided to also eventually cook my way through Dolce Italiano, the cookbook by Mario Batali’s pastry chef Gina DePalma that my mother got me for Xmas.  So I made my first recipe for Book Club: Bittersweet Chocolate Hazelnut cookies. 

They are little dense balls of ground hazelnuts, chopped chocolate, and dark chocolate dough.  I figured if the cake was a failure, no one was going to be upset with chocolate and hazelnut.  The recipe was relatively easy to follow, although I’m annoyed that the entire book is written for someone with a KitchenAid and no alternative methods seem to be listed for someone working with a hand mixer.  Harrumph.  But they were tasty – rich without being too sweet, with a crumbly but not too dry interior. 

But it turns out the back-up cookies weren’t actually needed as it appeared the cake went over well.  Once it cooled, the anise flavor mellowed and combined better with the others.  The Book Club gals seemed to like both the cake/ice-cream combo, and the cookies as well, with folks taking some things home.  I had one slice left for me and it didn’t last very long in my possession either.  Would recommend them all to make again. 

Update on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 10:06AM by Leslie Seaton

Ooops.  Just realized I didn't really describe the results of the cake and ice milk well enough for anyone who might be considering making it.  The cake uses applesauce and so while there is oil and egg in it, the applesauce helped also make it very very moist without adding more heaviness or richness.  So the final product was dense and sliced very well but wasn't like so overly rich as to make you feel like you've overindulged.  It seems like had this lasted, it would have stayed moist for a while. 

My friend Sarah, also member of Book Club, frequent guest star on Three Bowls and actual soon-to-be-visitor to China commented that the flavor of the cake was sort of reminiscent of an Italian cookie, where the anise flavor is there and clear but doesn't like...stand out so much from the other flavors that it's like slapping you in the face.

The ginger ice milk the other folks liked with the cake.  There's really not too much to say about the flavor; it was pure ginger taste, although cut, obviously, by being uses sparingly and having the milk and suger to mellow it out.  But no complexity to it, which I think it why I probably wouldn't make it on its own.  I also think it would actually probably be better to use a higher percentage of cream and make an actual ice cream as ice milks are a little challenging to eat and this one just kind of melted onto the cake.