Sara Hohn – Food… Brooklyn & Beyond

A zuccotto cake is sometimes compared to a Baked Alaska for its typically frozen ingredients and domed shape. But the zuccotto is a Florentine specialty whose name references either the the Duomo of the Florence skyline or the Tuscan name for a cardinal’s skullcap. It’s a molded, layered cake filled with a whipped cream mixture.

Since visiting the down homely stylish Cheeks Bakery this past weekend, I’ve become deeply fond of their pumpkin zuccotto cake. While neither frozen nor domed, it was one of the loveliest and most unusual cakes I’ve tried in a long time. Like its predecessor, the Cheeks zuccotto is filled with chilled whipped cream flecked with chocolate bits. Its primary structure is created with 4 pressed layers of pumpkin-flavored sponge cake. Pumpkin cakes are fairly unusual. However in the Alpine region of France, pumpkin was routinely made into a sweet bread, and was considered a cheap way to “extend” the amount of wheat on hand; the fibrous pumpkin adding structure to the bread. Pumpkin quick breads have also long been a New England favorite. In the Cheeks Bakery pumpkin zuccotto, the adaptable pumpkin’s faintly spicy, earthy flavor with the sweet cream and the bitterness of the dark chocolate makes for a knockout cake available by the slice.

Cheeks
378 Metropolitan Avenue

Originally published on Until Monday: Brooklyn