Chloe Martin, Landmarks’ former Office and Communications Coordinator, is a talented baker. She created a unique cake to celebrate the bicentennial inspired by Portland and Maine, and shared the recipe with us:
When I was asked to make a cake for Landmark’s Maine Bicentennial Celebration my inspiration started at the old Eastland Hotel and then took me on a journey to Denmark, through my family history, on to the potato fields of Presque Isle, and back down to Portland’s Great Fire of 1866. The result was a moist chocolate fudge cake with toasty meringue topping.
Ingredients
Cake:
4 TBS (56 g) butter, room temp (half stick)
½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
2 TBS (25 g) brown sugar
2 oz (56g) potato, boiled and mashed till smooth
1 egg
1 egg yolk (save the white for later)
½ cup + 2 TBS (87 g) all-purpose flour
2 TBS (10g) cocoa powder
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup + 2 TBS buttermilk (or milk with 2tsp lemon juice)
Toasty Topping:
4 egg whites
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar
Scrape down the sides of the bowl after each ingredient is added. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand-held mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add mashed potatoes and mix until well-incorporated. Beat in the egg and egg yolk. With the mixer on low, drizzle in melted chocolate. In a separate bowl whisk or sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low speed alternate adding the dry ingredients in thirds, with half the milk, starting and ending with the dry.
Spray an 8x8 metal pan with grease. Line with two pieces of parchment with overhang in opposite directions to create a sling to make it easier to take the cake out. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and set aside while you make the meringue topping.
Heat the oven to 325 degrees F. In the clean bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, add the egg whites and cream of tartar. Beat on medium-low until foamy. Turn the mixer up to medium and very slowly add sugar with the machine running. After the sugar is added, turn the machine on high and beat until stiff peaks form. Save ¼ cup meringue for later. Scrape the rest of the meringue on top of the cake batter and spread out, pressing some meringue into the batter and forming dramatic swoops of meringue. Bake for 45-55 minutes until a toothpick comes out mostly clean with a few wet crumbs, turning half way through.
When the cake is done, remove from oven and turn on broiler. Use the meringue set aside to patch up any holes made in the topping when testing the cake. Put the cake under the broiler for 2 minutes, or until the meringue peaks get toasty to your liking. Remove cake from oven, let cool completely and use parchment paper sling to take cake out of pan. Enjoy!
