FFwD: Quatre-Quarts

I love Dorie's baking recipes. I do. It just makes me laugh that, no matter how basic the recipe appears, it still sets off a bomb in my kitchen. Quatre-quarts (pg 434 of Around My French Table, participating in French Fridays with Dorie) is no exception. Dorie says in her intro that, like a pound cake, this recipe is "based on equal measures of four ingredients: eggs, flour, sugar, and butter."

Four ingredients. That sounds easy enough to contain, dish-wise. Except that the butter needs to be melted first. The eggs need to be separated--whites whipped in the stand mixer, yolks mixed with sugar in another bowl. Flour, baking soda, and salt goes in another bowl. I do fully admit that I've broken a number of my Pyrex bowls in the past year, so when I say that the recipe uses every bowl in the house, that's not really THAT impressive of a feat. Still, for something that only uses four basic ingredients, dirtying up four bowls just strikes me as funny. I need to get out more.

What you get at the end of all the dish-washing is a fairly dry vanilla cake that serves as a vehicle for getting the topping of your choice to your mouth. I made a mixed berry compote and amaretto whipped cream, and it was good. I probably wouldn't have liked the cake much without the adornments. I brought it to a friend's for dinner last night, and couldn't help but notice that people--including myself--were taking seconds and thirds of the berries and cream, but not of the cake. It's okay as a basic recipe that I'm glad to have tucked away for the future when I'm wondering how to use up fruit sauce, but it's not something I'd ever want on its own.

Conclusion: Just okay.