Honey Lemon Olive Oil Whole-Wheat Red Wine Italian Meringue Coffee Cake with Dark Chocolate and Toasted Hazelnuts: A Daring Baker’s Challenge

Honey Lemon Olive Oil Whole Wheat Red Wine Italian Meringue Coffee Cake with Dark Chocolate and Toasted Hazelnuts

By Irvin Lin

The base recipe of this coffee cake is adapted from a recipe that Jamie from Life’s a Feast found on a yellowed piece of paper in her dad’s collection of recipes from the 1970s. There was no source or date. The red wine meringue is adapted from Food and Wine Magazine.

Ingredients
Yeasted Dough
1 1/4 (210 g) cups all purpose flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon yeast
zest of 1 medium lemon, finely grated
2 tablespoons honey
1/3 cup whole milk
1/4 cup olive oil
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup (70 g) white whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon flax meal

Red Wine Italian Meringue
1/2 cup dry red wine
1/2 cup (100 g) white granulated sugar
1 1/2 large egg white (45 g) at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
4 oz cream cheese at room temperature

Filling
1/2 cup hazelnuts
3 oz dark chocolate (I used 60% cacoa)
finely ground fresh pepper (preferably mixed peppercorns)

Egg wash
One large egg, beaten

Glaze
4 oz cream cheese at room temperature
3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar (powdered sugar), sifted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3-5 tablespoon milk

Directions
1. Place 3/4 cup of all purpose flour, salt, yeast, lemon zest into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Take a balloon whisk and vigorously stir the dry ingredients together. Place the honey, whole milk and olive oil in a small pan and gently heat up on medium. You want the milk to warm up, but you don’t want the milk to get too hot, just warm enough to dissolve the honey.

2. Turn the mixer on low speed and drizzle the warm milk and honey liquid into the bowl. Once it has all been added turn the mixture on to medium and beat for two minutes. Then add the egg and remaining1/2 cup of all purpose flour. Beat for another two minutes until all the flour is incorporated. Add 1/2 cup of the white whole wheat flour and the flax meal and beat the dough until the flour and meal is incorporated. If you having difficulty getting the dough to incorporate the flour and meal, use your hands and manually knead the flour in. Once all the ingredients are incorporated into a dough, switch the paddle attachement for the dough hook and knead the dough for 10 to 15 minutes on medium, until the dough is smooth and elastic. If the dough starts to stick to the sides and gets too wet, you can add the additional 1/4 cup of white whole wheat flour 1 tablespoon at a time.

3. Take the dough out of the bowl, spray another large bowl with cooking spray, and then place the dough in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and let rise for about an hour, or until the dough has doubled in size. Once the dough has doubled, punch it down and let it rise one more time until double, another 45 to 50 minutes.

4. In the meanwhile as you wait for you dough to rise, prepare your filling by chopping the dark chocolate and placing it aside. Then chop the hazelnuts and place them on a tray and toast them in the oven (or toaster oven if you have one) for 5 minutes at 350˚F. You want the hazelnuts to be golden brown. Because careful you don’t burn them.

5. Once dough has doubled the second time, prepare the red wine Italian meringue. Place the wine and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cook the wine until it reaches the firm ball stage (248˚F), which should take about 8 to 10 minutes. While the wine is cooking, place the egg white, cream of tartar and salt in a clean bowl of a standing mixer with fitted with a wire whisk attachment. Then beat the egg until it reaches soft peaks.

6. Once the wine has reached the right temperature, turn off the heat and bring the pan over to the egg whites. Turn the mixer onto medium and slowly drizzle the wine syrup into the bowl. The meringue should turn a lovely lavender color. Keep whipping the eggs, and once you have used up all the wine syrup, turn the mixer to high and whip until the meringue becomes shiny, glossy and stiff. Turn the mixer to medium and spoon a tablespoon of the cream cheese into the meringue. Whip the meringue to incorporate the cream cheese and repeat until you have used up all the cream cheese. This will deflate the meringue but don’t worry.

7. Roll the dough out to a 10 inch by 20 inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface. Spread the meringue on top of the dough all the way up to 1/2 inch of the edges. Then evenly sprinkle the toasted hazelnuts on the meringue. Then evenly sprinkle the chopped chocolate on the meringue. Then take a pepper mill and grind an even dusting of finely ground pepper (I did a once over the dough. Don’t be too heavy handed, you just want a dusting).

8. Line a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper. Now taking the long end (20 inches) of the dough and roll it like a jelly roll almost to the top. Brush the top edge with a little bit of the egg wash and the seal the dough, pinching the seams together as much as you can careful (without tearing). Then carefully transfer the filled log to the lined baking sheet and wrap the ends together to make a ring. Brush the ends lightly with the egg wash again and pinch the ends together tightly to form the ring.

9. Then, using kitchen scissors or a sharp knife, make cuts along the outside edge of the ring, at about 1 1/2 inch intervals all the way around. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let rise again until double in size, about 1 hour.

10. Preheat the oven 10 minutes before you bake it, to 350˚F. Once the ring has doubled in size, brush the ring with egg wash and then bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown and the cake sounds hollow when you tap on it. You may want to check the baking half way through. I found that the meringue started to weep out of the coffee cake and burn (causing nasty smoke to come from my oven). I took the pan out of the oven, scraped up the meringue bits with a heatproof spatula and then put the cake back in the oven. Problem solved.

11. Let the cake cool on the baking sheet for ten to fifteen minutes. Then gently transfer it to a wire cooling rack (I used two spatulas to do the transfer). After the cake has come to room temperature prepare the glaze by placing the cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar (remember to sift it, if you don’t you might have lumps which are a difficult to get rid of) and vanilla in the bowl of a standing mixer. Beat until smooth and add 3 tablespoons of the milk, one tablespoon at a time. You want the glaze to be thin enough to drizzle but thick enough to hold it’s shape. Add more milk to thin it. If you accidentally add too much milk, try thickening it by adding more confectioners’ sugar (just be aware that you’ll also be making it sweeter). Once the glaze is made, pour it into a ziplock bag, seal the bag, snip a corner of it, and then squeeze the glaze over cake from center to outside all the way around. Serve at room temperature.

Makes 1 coffee cake ring.