A Junk-Foodie’s Perfect Dessert: Compost Cake

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a recipe on this blog! Mostly because I’ve been sharing my bakes over at Taste of Home. But I thought I’d share a new-to-me recipe here today.

This past December, I got to interview Christina Tosi and I totally fell in love with her new cookbook All About Cake. I whipped up her birthday sheet cake for an assignment. It was fantastic, but a lot of work. Paging through the book, I found a casual recipe that was more my speed for everyday sweets: compost cake.

What really caught my eye was the pretzels and potato chips sticking out the top. I’m big on salty-meets-sweet desserts. This one was for me. It just might be for you, too.

I will say that I altered the recipe a bit to suit my taste. I nixed the butterscotch chips (they’re not my favorite) and added some more pretzels and chips in their place. I also simplified the method a bit. Give my version a go, but also grab All About Cake for the full experience (and lots of great cake recipes!).

OK, let’s start! To make this cake you’ll need:

• 2 cups cake flour
• 3/4 cup + 3 tablespoon sugar
• 1/4 cup old fashioned oats
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground coffee
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 7 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup crumbled graham crackers
• 1/4 cup pretzels, lightly crushed
• 1/4 cup potato chips, lightly crushed
• 1 tablespoon flour

For the topping, you’ll need:

• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1-1/2 teaspoons grapeseed oil
• Handful pretzels
• Handful potato chips

Mixing Up the Batter

I love this cake because it doesn’t require any heavy-duty equipment. Instead of breaking out the stand mixer, you can just use a spatula or a whisk. Major win for lazy me who doesn’t want to lift the ol‘ KitchenAid out of the closet.

OK, start by whisking together the cake flour, oats, brown sugar, sugar, coffee, baking powder and salt together. Then, in another dish, whisk together the melted butter, grapeseed oil, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs.

Take the wet ingredients, add them to the dry and give them a good stir until combined. Easy peasy!

Then toss the chocolate chips, graham cracker crumbles, pretzel bits and potato chips together with a tablespoon or so of flour. You want to give these ingredients a quick coat in flour to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake.

Once they’re coated, just stir them into that batter. It should be pretty darn thick. Don’t worry – it just means it’s full of the good stuff.

Baking the Compost Cake

Grease and line an 8×4″ loaf pan with parchment paper. Then add your batter. Bake this for an hour at 350ºF. It’s a long time, but it’s kind of nice not to have to babysit something for a while.

When it’s done baking, cool it on a rack for about a half hour before removing it from the pan. You’ll want it to be completely cool (or at least nearly cool) before moving onto the last bit.

Topping It All Off

What really made this cake stand out to me was the topping. Pretzels! Chips! Chocolate! And making that topping is really easy.

All you need to do is melt together a half cup of chocolate chips with a teaspoon and a half of grapeseed oil. You can do this in the microwave if you have one – we actually ditched ours more than a year ago (and you can read about it here). Otherwise, melt it with a double boiler on the stove.

All that’s left to do is dip pretzels and chips into the chocolate and stick them to the top of the bread. Use whole pretzels and chips, crunched up ones, whatever you please. When I felt like the top was pretty packed with salty snacks, I drizzled a little bit more of the chocolate on top.

You want this to set up a bit before diving right into it. If you want this cake quick, pop it into the freezer for five minutes to set it. If you’re not in a rush, you can refrigerate for a half hour or so. Just be sure to bring it back to room temp before serving.

The Eating

In the end, this compost cake is exactly the kind of dessert I love: unfussy, slightly messy and almost overstuffed.

I sliced this up and served it during our podcasting practice (March goal!), and it definitely kept us going as we rehearsed. I really like how each bit is a bit different. Plus, as an easily adaptable recipe, I like that I can crunch up whatever snacks I have on hand (or whatever bits of candy) to mix into a future batch.

Give it a go (and get that cookbook, too!).