This compost pound cake recipe is from Christina Tosi's latest book, All About Cake (available from Amazon). This recipe is a twist on her popular compost cookie recipe that was featured in her first book Milk Bar (also from Amazon), containing dark chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, oats, ground coffee, pretzels, and potato chips!
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Remember the next level compost cookies that Christina Tosi dubbed "compost cookies"? The recipe for the compost cookies was originally printed in the Momofuku Milk Bar baking cookbook (get it on Amazon—it's one of my all-time favourite baking books!). Well, Christina Tosi is back with the pound cake version in her new book All About Cake (also available on Amazon).
The compost pound cake, as she calls it, is a simple loaf cake that is loaded with all sorts of fun ingredients and toppings. And while the compost cookies contained graham crackers, dark chocolate and white chocolate chips, potato chips, ground coffee, and oats, the pound cake version of the compost cookies contains graham crackers, dark chocolate and butterscotch chips, ground coffee, and oats.
The potato chips (and pretzels) are actually a topping that is added at the end, instead of incorporated into the batter. Not surprising because they'd probably melt and disappear into the cake if you folded them into the cake batter before baking. The same idea can be applied to coconut macaroons to make everything but the kitchen sink macaroons too!
The recipe for the compost pound cake includes both dark chocolate and butterscotch chips, as well as ground coffee, graham cracker crumbs, oats, and lots of vanilla. After baking, it's topped with potato chips and mini pretzels because this is the cake version of the compost cookies, which are the ultimate everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cookies, if you ask me.
The cake is best served the day you have garnished it with potato chips and pretzels because by the next day, the toppings do become soggy. The cake will keep for a week in any case! Remember to use the best chocolate for baking when you make this cake and not all chocolate chips are created equal!
Other Milk Bar recipes to try
If you are fan of Milk Bar and Christina Tosi's style of baking, there are a few other recipes that you should try:
- Layer cakes:
- homemade Momofuku Milk Bar birthday cake, the classic confetti sprinkle birthday reinvented as a naked cake, made with imitation vanilla instead of pure vanilla extract
- Milk Bar-inspired blackberry almond layer cake, which is twist on Milk Bar's lemon pistachio layer cake
- Cookies:
- Milk Bar compost cookies recipe, which are a riff on the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cookies
- Cake truffles that you can make with Milk Bar cake scraps:
- Milk Bar birthday cake truffles which you make with the leftover cake scraps after making the homemade Milk Bar birthday cake recipe
- Pie:
- Milk Bar crack pie recipe, which is a sweet salty sugar pie with a oatmeal cookie crust
Compost pound cake
Ingredients
- 90 grams (7 tablespoon) unsalted butter melted
- 90 grams (⅓ cups) buttermilk (1 % fat)
- 30 grams (3 tablespoon) canola oil
- 2 ½ teaspoon (2 ½ teaspoon) pure vanilla extract
- 3 (3 ) large egg(s)
- 240 grams (2 cups) cake flour
- 180 grams (¾ cups+ 3 tbsp) granulated sugar
- 30 grams (2 tablespoon) light brown sugar
- 30 grams (¼ cup) rolled oats (or large flake oats)
- 1 tablespoon (1 tablespoon) ground coffee beans
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
- 75 grams (⅓ cup+1 tbsp) mini chocolate chips
- 50 grams (¼ cup) butterscotch chips
- 50 grams (⅓ cup) graham cracker crumbs
- 10 grams (1 tbsp+1 tsp) bleached all-purpose flour
Toppings
- 65 grams (⅓ cups) mini chocolate chips
- ½ teaspoon (½ teaspoon) canola oil
- 25 grams (25 grams) potato chips
- 25 grams (25 grams) mini pretzels
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 1-pound loaf pan. I used the Gold OXO Good Grips Non-Stick Pro Loaf Pan, which is recommended by Christina Tosi in the intro of her book (available on Amazon). I also lined the bottom with a rectangle of parchment (I call that insurance).
- Whisk the melted butter, buttermilk, 30 grams (3 tablespoons) oil, vanilla extract, and eggs together in a large bowl.
- Whisk the cake flour, sugar, brown sugar, oats, coffee, baking powder, and salt together in a separate large bowl.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir to combine. If the batter looks lumpy, use a whisk to break up all the lumps.
- In a separate bowl, toss the 75 grams (⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon) chocolate chips, 50 grams (¼ cup) butterscotch chips, and graham cracker crumbles, with the AP flour. (Tossing them in flour first helps to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the cake while it bakes.)
- Pour half of the compost batter into the loaf pan, then fold the remaining batter into the bowl with the chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and graham cracker crumbles. Pour this mixture on top of the batter in the loaf pan.
- Bake until the cake rises and puffs, about 70 minutes. At 60 minutes, tap the top of the cake with your fingertips: The cake should bounce back and the center should no longer be jiggly. If it doesn’t pass this test, leave the cake in the oven for an additional 5 to 10 minutes.
- Let the cake cool in the pan for 45 minutes, then run a small butter knife or offset spatula between the edge of the cake and the pan to help release the cake from the pan. Invert the pan onto a wire rack to fully release the cake. Turn the cake right side up and let it cool completely.
- Melt the 65 grams (⅓ cup + 1 teaspoon) mini chocolate chips or butterscotch chips and 2.5 grams (½ teaspoon) of oil in the microwave in 30-second increments.
- Decorate the top of the compost pound cake by dipping the potato chips and pretzels, broken up if desired, in the melted chocolate or butterscotch, using each as a glue to stick the chips and pretzels to the top. Put the cake in the fridge and let the chocolate harden and cool for 5 minutes, then dig in!
- The cake will keep in the refrigerator, wrapped, for up to 1 week. Let the refrigerated cake sit at room temperature for 1 hour before serving.
Notes
- This recipe is from All About Cake by Christina Tosi (available on Amazon)
- I used the Gold OXO Good Grips Non-Stick Pro Loaf Pan, which is recommended by Christina Tosi in the intro of her book (available on Amazon). I prefer the shape of this pan to my other loaf pans and the non-stick surface is really helpful when it comes time to unmold the cake. I highly recommend the OXO loaf pan.
- For this recipe, you can use regular Nestlé butterscotch morsels (Amazon). I wasn't able to find mini butterscotch chips, as the recipe suggested.
Nutrition
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Recipe shared with permission from Appetite by Random House.
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