Tiger Cakes

Any cakes that are made with buttery almond and chocolate get my attention. To make something resembling the natural stripes of a tiger is surely an adventure to the wild not be missed. There will be more fanciful cakes of all stripes on this week's blogroll at TWD, "Tuesdays with Dorie" online baking group, using Dorie Greenspan tiger cakes recipe from Baking with Chez Moi.

This was a fun bake. The tiger cakes remind me of one of my favorite cakes, financiers, which are made similarly with almond flour, egg whites and brown butter.

Three large egg whites aerated one cup (100g) of almond meal/flour. Other dry ingredients: sugar, three tablespoons of all-purpose flour and salt, were added next. One stick of melted butter went into the batter, followed by 85 grams very finely chopped bittersweet chocolate. Next time, I'll make sure to chop the chocolate in an elongated rather than a stubby shape I did here. The streak of chocolate is what creates the tiger stripes after it's baked. The batter was distributed into greased silicone molds, one rectangular and one round. Baking time was relatively brief; 15 to 18 minutes in a 350°F oven was all it took.

The fun part was glazing the cakes with the chocolate ganache. It's optional, according to Dorie. The chocolate ganache makes the cakes richer and more decadent. I don't usually decorate my cakes; they get eaten quickly once they leave the oven. But the idea of replicating a striated tiger pattern caught my fancy. I took off outside the box with that!

Inspiration for the tiger stripes