SnackHands Bakes the First-Ever (maybe) Flourless Cinnamon Cake

Have you ever noticed that the majority of flourless cake recipes are chocolate-flavored? This bugs me. It just seems unreasonable that one flavor should have such a coup on a dessert.

This week, I decided to experiment with it -- not because I'm anti-chocolate, or even that I'm all that excited about flourless cake, but because of a friend of mine who needs some better food options. M2 is the wife of one of my best friends on the planet. She suffers from a condition called Interstitial Cystitis (IC, for short). I don't claim any medical expertise on this, but it basically means she's uncomfortable and in pain a lot of the time. And there's not a hell of a lot she can do about it. And to top things off, many of foods that are flavorful (tomatoes, lemons, chocolate, etc.) trigger even more irritation. Recently, she's hit a bit of a rough patch, and she has decided to try out a gluten-free diet (in addition to the already-limiting IC diet) to see if it makes any difference in how she feels. Needless to say, this does not leave her with a ton of variety in the way of good food.

Enter Snackhands. Could I make a dessert that was IC-friendly, gluten-free, AND delicious?

Man, I love a cooking challenge! And I especially love a cooking challenge that allows me to pass the product onto someone who needs the calories more than me. If I cooked and ate every experimental recipe that has ever run through my head, I'd weigh a thousand pounds.

So. I did a little research on flourless cake. As I suspected, I mostly found chocolate recipes, with a few citrus-based. Strike. In addition to the chocolate and citrus limitation, I was also thwarted by the fact that many cakes included ground almonds, another no-no. I really wanted to try to create a cinnamon cake, but was a little concerned about what would give it its bulk, in the absence of things like ground almonds or cocoa powder or chocolate chips. What could I use as a sub? Cornmeal? (Or would that just turn into cinnamon-flavored cornbread?) Ground oatmeal? (Or would that end up to be too thick and heavy?) What to do?

And then -- Eureka! -- I discovered these:
Oh glorious cinnamon chips! Who knew you were even out there?! I was pretty thrilled to make this discovery, as I think it opens a whole other world of dessert options. They're slightly hard to come by, however. In NYC, I found them at the Hershey's store near Times Square. The next closest place I discovered that might have them was in New Jersey.

Anyway, on to the cake. I found a very-positively-reviewed recipe for Flourless Chocolate Cake with Toasted Hazelnuts and Brandied Cherries on Epicurious. I figured I could eliminate the hazelnuts and cherries and replace the chocolate with the cinnamon chips. This turned out to be true, for the most part, though the cinnamon chips seemed to have a different consistency when melted than chocolate might have.

Here's how I adapted the recipe:

Ingredients for the cake:
1 10-oz bag of Hershey's Cinnamon Chips
2 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, diced
10 egg yolks
1/2 cup plus 6 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
9 egg whites

Ingredients for the ganache:
1 10-oz bag of Hershey's Cinnamon Chips (have another one on hand, just in case)
1 cup heavy cream
(It might also be a good idea to have some corn starch around)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. The original recipe calls for a buttered 10-inch springform pan with 2 3/4-inch sides. I didn't have that, so I used two 9-inch cake pans lined on the bottom and sides with parchment paper.

Put the cinnamon chips and butter in a small/medium metal bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until mixture is melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water; cool until lukewarm.
While that's cooling, use an electric mixer to beat egg yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar for about five minutes, at which time it should be thick and pale yellow. Beat in the vanilla and salt. Then gently fold in the cinnamon mixture. Using clean, dry beaters, beat the egg whites and remaining 6 tablespoons of sugar in another bowl until peaks form. Fold egg whites in three additions into cinnamon mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan(s).

You are supposed to bake this for about 45 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs. I had to play with this a lot. Because the cake is really moist to begin with, it was hard to tell when it was done. For one of my cakes (more batter), I probably baked it for an hour and a half. The other one only took about 45-50 minutes. Be prepared for it to get all puffy and souffle-like when it's in the oven, and for it to deflate when it comes out. Cool it in the pan for 15 minutes, then get it out of the pan and cool it completely.
The ganache proved to be tricky, which may be because the cinnamon chips melt to a thinner consistency than chocolate. Basically, you are supposed to mix the chips and the cream in a metal bowl and melt them over a saucepan of simmering water, much like you did for the cake. You are supposed to cool it for about 5 minutes, when it is still pourable. I cooled mine for about 15 and found it to still be really runny. I hadn't made ganache before, but I was suspicious that it wasn't going to set the wayit was supposed to. So I added some corn starch. Too much, as it turned out, and it tasted bitter. As a fix, I added another bag of melted chips, and that seemed to work. The final consistency, however was not ganache-y. It was more like caramel or peanut butter. Nonetheless, it tasted pretty damn good. If you want it to not be so thick, I suggest you try more chips, less cream.

The final cake product had a consistency similar to pumpkin pie, but less slimey. On one of the cakes, I sprinkled chopped chocolate chips on half a side, just in case M2 wanted to live on the edge. All in all, I'd have to say it pretty delicious, and it got thumbs up from both M2 and her hubby, which was the idea. Overall, I call this an IC-friendly, gluten-free dessert success. (Actually, I'd call it a dessert success, period.)

SnackHands loves Prague!

Is it possible that our taste buds are genetically programmed?

When I was in grade school, my dad figured out for me that I am 12% Bohemian. What you might call Czech, these days. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but I give it extra weight because Bohemia is also where my last name hails from. I didn't grow up eating Czech food, and it wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I visited my first Czech restaurant. I can't remember exactly what I ate, only that it was a mixture of meats and breading and cheese, and that it, somehow, tasted familiar.

In February, I went to Prague, Czech Republic, for a week. I tried to get there as slim as possible because I knew my diet throughout the week would consist largely of potatoes, pork, beer and cheese. Oh, and kielbasa with rye bread from a cart on the street. Does it get any better??? (Answer: No, it doesn't.)

My first meal was ham carved off a pig roasting on a spit in the middle of a little street festival we came across. My second, later that same evening, was potato pancakes with sausage and a side of bread dumplings. Later in the week I discovered honey cake, which was on the menu in pretty much every restaurant, thank god.
I also had an absinthe macchiato, which was fascinating and pretty. Everything I ate and drank made me love the city that much more. Not that Prague is not a hard place to love -- beautiful ornate buildings, winding cobblestone alleyways, and just the all-around cool experience of being in a totally different place, at a totally different pace, and fitting right into it. If you haven't been, go. Just go.

The greatest place we stumbled upon was this one: www.rest2000.cz/uciriny We got there at about 3 in the afternoon. The two ladies working were sweet and helpful, despite our slight language barrier. I ordered the "pancakes with ham foam." Don't ask me what "ham foam" is supposed to be. What I got was a piping hot casserole dish filled with delicious crepes loaded with creamy cheese and ham. For desert, THE GREATEST THING I'VE EVER EATEN. These apple fritters:
Basically, hot doughnuts rolled in sugar and cinnamon, baked around apples and drizzled with chocolate. Oh. My. God.

I've been back in NYC for about a month now. My stomach is homesick.

SnackHands is Born

Some time ago, after helping a friend lug a bunch of heavy stuff around his apartment, I found myself ravenously digging through his kitchen cabinets. He had cereal, not much else. That was perfectly fine with me, and I shoved handful upon handful into my mouth. At one point, my friend looked over at me, elbow-deep in cereal, half the box gone already, and declared with a smirk, "Wow, you've got a real snack hand!" I laughed. And then I ate some more cereal, embracing my new nickname with open arms. Er, hands.

I admit it. I love food. Cooking it, baking it, eating it (who doesn't?), thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it, researching it, experimenting with it, and, now, writing about it. Bon appetit!