-We are making a savory
leftovers cake.
It's a great way to use up
condiments and cheese.
It's delicious.
♪♪
I'm Zoe Kanan,
and I am a pastry chef
in New York City.
Today we are making a cake salé,
or a savory cake.
You want to use a combination
of vegetables,
maybe some sort of meat
or mushrooms, and cheese.
If you don't have any cheese,
I would wait until you do
to make this.
Part of the inspiration
for this was,
weirdly enough,
this old pepper.
This is a poblano,
and this is gonna be where
we're gonna derive a bunch of
the flavor for our cake today.
I'm gonna give it a char.
So, I'm gonna turn my heat
all the way up
and place it directly
over the heat.
I'm just gonna move it
around over the flame.
[ Popping ]
You're gonna hear that popping,
as the skin begins to char
and sort of snap.
As it chars, it starts to
smell really good
and is making me feel
like I'm outside.
I'm using chopsticks
made of wood,
which lights on fire,
so I would recommend
using tongs instead.
I'm only gonna turn my back
on that for one second,
just enough time to roughly
chop up these strips of bacon.
And I'm gonna start prepping
all of my different mix-ins
and then collecting them
in a bowl.
My pepper is nicely charred.
I'm going to steam it now
in this plastic bag.
We're just gonna let this sit
and steam out for a little bit.
Next, I am going to prep
my Brussels sprouts.
These are just left over.
I'm gonna cut them into eighths
and toss them in with my bacon.
These also already
have some char,
so that's gonna easily play
into the flavors
that we're going with,
with our pepper.
Gonna take my red cabbage.
These are my windowsill
scallions.
I'm just relatively
thinly slicing these
and making sure I'm gonna leave
about 1 1/2 inch left
so I can re-grow.
Back in my water.
We're gonna move into
making the batter.
This is probably the easiest
cake batter I've ever made.
There's no sugar in it.
Okay, so I just grabbed my flour
from my freezer.
Flours, spices --
I always recommend to keep
those things in your freezer.
I'm using about 180 grams.
It's like a cup and a half.
Baking powder --
gonna use 8 grams,
about 2 teaspoons.
This has a decent amount
of baking powder in it.
That's because we have
all of these mix-ins going in.
We're gonna have
all of the cheese.
So, those are heavy things,
and the batter is gonna need
a little extra leavening
to help it rise in the oven.
Salt -- 1/2 teaspoon.
I'm always excited to use
this green-chili powder.
It's not very spicy,
but it adds
this really beautiful,
like, herbal quality.
I am going to
get a little whisk
and just blend this together.
I'm making a little well
in the center of my dries,
and pretty much devised this
so that you can mix everything
in the same bowl.
So, I have 4 eggs.
I've had them sitting out
at room temperature,
and that's just gonna keep
the batter a little bit warmer,
which is gonna help it
bake faster in the oven.
I'm just gonna whisk them.
1/2 cup of milk is going in.
I had some leftover
bacon drippings,
so I need 1/4 cup of oil total.
I'm gonna measure out
these bacon drippings
and then make up the difference
with olive oil.
There's so much flavor
in bacon fat
that it can be added
to, like, the simplest,
most humble ingredients
and really
make it more satisfying.
This bomba is super fiery hot,
so I'm gonna add
a couple of spoonfuls of that.
If you were doing more, like,
classic version of this
with olives and ham,
instead of using bomba,
I would recommend using
the, like, heat from mustard.
Just gonna combine it
until it smoothens out.
Use a whisk for this
to get the lumps out.
Once you've combined the dry
ingredients and the liquids,
you don't want to overwork it
because that's going to develop
gluten in the recipe.
My batter is made.
I have this piece
of white cheddar,
which is what I'm gonna
mostly use.
I also have these weird nubs
of cheeses.
This is Parm and Gruyère.
Parm rind is also something
that you can save,
and there's a lot of flavor
still locked in there,
and you can throw that
into a stock.
I'm not worried about
getting perfect shreds.
It's okay if little nubs
get in there.
My pepper has been steaming.
I am now going to use
the blade of my knife
to scrape off the charred skin
because it just gets this, like,
plasticy texture
once it's been cooked.
We definitely don't want that.
I grew up in Texas, and my dad
did a lot of our cooking,
and he cooked almost everything
outside on a grill.
So, having, like, charred flavor
is something that's, like,
comforting to me.
Gonna cut it open,
scrape out the seeds.
I'm gonna slice out
the spine of the pepper.
Now I'm just gonna slice this
into little strips.
There's still some, like,
freshness
and bite to the pepper.
It's, like, not completely
cooked through,
so it'll finish cooking
in our cake.
And now I'm just gonna
roughly chop this.
Then I have just a couple
of these pickled jalapeños.
Because the classic version
of this has olives in it,
like, it's so rich
from the cheese
that something kind of briny
is nice in here.
Roughly chop these up.
My mix-ins are complete,
so I'm going to fold these in
to my batter.
Can use a spatula for this.
I'm using a bowl scraper.
I put a lot of mix-ins
in this batter,
definitely more than is typical.
I'm gonna season it
with some pepper
and then taste the batter
for salt.
There's quite a lot of, like,
natural salt in this
from, like, the bacon
and the cheese.
I think we're good on the salt.
All right, just folding in
the pepper.
Gonna prepare my loaf pan,
and then I am lining it
with parchment paper.
And I want my sheet of parchment
to be just under
the length of my pan,
and I'm going to use
my non-stick spray,
to help adhere the paper
to the sides
to make it easier for me
to remove the cake.
Now I'm going to just scrape
all of my batter in,
spread it evenly
throughout the pan,
and rap it on the counter
a couple of times.
I have my oven pre-heating
to 350,
and we will check on it
in about 40 minutes.
I like to bake it on the rack
with a sheet tray on the shelf
just below it
so that it can catch anything
that, like,
happens to bubble out.
The leftovers cake has been
baking for about an hour now,
and we're ready to take it out.
Depending on what, like,
mix-ins you have,
a knife or cake tester
might not come out clean,
but in this case mine will.
So, we're good.
We slice it up
while it's still piping hot.
Let's try it.
♪♪
The interior tastes
creamy and eggy
but still has, like, a nice
bounce-back from the cheese.
It's spicy, and I just bit into
a Brussels sprout,
which made it
a little bit more hearty.
It's delicious.
Try baking
a savory leftovers cake.
Enjoy.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
