I love a recipe with a story, and this one starts with "You're fired." For creative insubordination. Dorie Greenspan was the apprentice pastry chef at one of the trendiest restaurants in New York City at the time: The Soho Charcuterie. She was bored making the same two desserts over and over every day so she tweaked this cake slightly and sent it out for service. I can only imagine that the owners of Soho Charcuterie (who closed in 1985) now regret their lack of vision and trust in such a star of the food world that Dorie became after leaving their establishment.

The Cake
Dorie's Chocolate Armagnac Cake is a variation on a Chocolate Whiskey Cake known as Le Doris that was created by Simone "Simca" Beck (one of Julia Child's co-authors of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I: 40th Anniversary Edition). The Chocolate Whiskey Cake appeared in Simca's cookbook, Simca's Cuisine, and it was the one served at The Soho Charcuterie.

Prunes for Raisins, Armagnac for Whiskey, Pecans for Almonds
I was curious and decided to make the two versions of the cake to taste side-by-side. To see what the hubbub was about. To taste the cake worthy of firing someone for. So I found the original version of Simone Beck's recipe for Chocolate Whiskey Cake, compared it to Dorie's and basically substituted raisins for prunes and almonds for pecans. I wanted to buy Armagnac, but at $99 CAD for a bottle, I had to settle for cognac. I ended up using cognac in both versions so it's not a true taste test, but it was close enough.

Malcolm Jolley: Why did you get fired?
Dorie Greenspan: Prunes.
— From an interview between Malcolm Jolley and Dorie 

Another food writer, Florence Fabricante, award-winning author for The New York Times has her own version of this cake too. Her changes include increasing the quality and amount of chocolate, using brown sugar, currants instead of raisins, and sometimes almond flour instead of all-purpose flour. She also uses Irish whiskey.

Every baker is a recipe hacker. I, too, use what I have available, leave out what I don't like, adjust the technique, and find a unique way to present it. A recipe is a sweet muse.

Virtual Dorie
I saw Virtual JFK on the weekend, and it made me think about what-if scenarios. What if Dorie had used currants instead of prunes? Would she have been fired? Would she have settled into a career as a pastry chef? Would we have Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) and bake each week through this wonderful cookbook? It's thanks to her tweaks and experimentation that we have so many beloved recipes. Cheers to her creative insubordination.

Recipe: Chocolate Armagnac Cake

Makes: 8 servings (I halved each recipe)

In the photo:
water, cognac & prunes/water, cognac & raisins
pecans, flour & salt/almonds, flour & salt
eggs, water, butter, chocolate, sugar/Glaze ingredients