Dessert Special

     So yesterday at work, I tried a new dessert for a special this weekend. When I was working out in Colorado I was introduced to this delicious cake. I was told it is called Basque cake. It's a dense vanilla cake with a hint of rum and has pastry cream baked into the center. I ran into some problems with the caking of the cake however. While in Denver we used deck ovens, and I was also baking in a high altitude situation. Here in Rhode Island I use convection ovens, and am just around sea level. So I converted my formula and hoped for the best.
     To my dismay, the cake over baked on the outside and under baked in the center. I cut the cake in half and allowed it to bake longer, to completely finish baking (this is not something I would recommend doing). I trimmed the dark edges and plated the cake with a cherry sauce and a salted vanilla caramel sauce and served it with cherries soaked in orange juice and a small whipped cream quenelle.

     Feed back from my Executive Chef, and front of house, who, are hopefully selling my dessert as we speak was great. People thought the cake was unique and quite tasty. The texture was not what they had expected, and many found the richness of the cake enjoyable. In all I'd say I was pleased, but would definitely try this cake again, with hopefully more success by altering the formula some more.