40th Birthday

Hello friends! I can't believe it has been almost a month since I've posted! Sorry about that! Things have been pretty busy around here and I've got a big project in the works. If it all works out, I'll be posting about it soon...

In the meantime, a few weeks ago I had the privilege of making a birthday cake for a friend of mine. Happy Birthday Matt! I was given a little guidance in the design, which I always like, but was given some creative license, too. So this one was a lot of fun!

Here it is!



This was my first time attempting a square cake. I think it turned out pretty well, though the fondant gave me some fits. Perhaps I need to tweak my recipe. In any case, I really like how it turned out in the end! I really love the combination of colors on this one! Very simple, but elegant and masculine. Perfect for a 40th birthday party.

The decorations are all made of modeling chocolate, which is so nice to work with! It cuts beautifully, holds up very well, and tastes delicious. You can also fix little imperfections by simply rubbing them out with a finger. The warmth of your finger will melt the chocolate just enough to fix the flaw or join a seam.



The hardest part of this design was the argyle pattern on the bottom tier. I thought it would be simple math, especially on the flat side of a square cake, but it ended up being surprisingly difficult to get the diamonds to line up properly. After about the third try, though, I managed to nail it! Ahhhh....learning is never simple, is it? And learning was never so tasty either!



The dashes are made from royal icing that I piped on by hand. To keep them straight, I marked out the lines first using toothpicks and a ruler.

I am usually the one taking pictures of my cakes, but my friend insisted I be in one with the cake this time. I guess it's kind of nice to be in a picture with one of my creations!



This cake was also so, so tasty. One of the best combinations: chocolate cake with coffee buttercream filling, covered with chocolate ganache. I have never been so thankful for cake scraps and leftover icing!

One of these days, I should have a cake scrap party and, when I'm finished with a cake, invite friends over to sip coffee (or wine) and eat the cake scraps with the leftover icing. Who's in?? :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Rolo Cake!

Have you all seen new Rolo minis? I came across them purely by accident in the store a few weeks ago and I HAD to get them. I love Rolos. Anything with caramel and chocolate is my friend. Rolos and me, we're really good friends.

Don't they look good?

Rather than just eat my new minis, I decided to incorporate them into a new cake. Chocolate. Caramel, Cake. How could it miss?

First I made a chocolate sheet cake.

Someone snuck into my picture! Actually made the picture better, in my opinion! :)

For the cake, I used The Pioneer Woman's recipe, which you can find here. Just the cake, not the icing. (Though I've made the icing before and it is really good!) This time, I had something else in mind.

After the cake was completely cool, I topped it with Caramel Buttercream. You can find a good recipe for that in this post. You could also just take your favorite vanilla buttercream and add some homemade or store bought caramel sauce.

Next, I chopped up some of those Rolo minis.

I cut them in half, but you could also leave them whole or chop them more. Whatever you like! I used all the Rolos in one of those bags above.

Nevermind what happened to the other bag! A mom has to have her secrets, right?

Finally, the Rolos got sprinkled all over the top of the cake.

Oh man, does that look good!

I meant to get a nice styled picture of a piece of this cake on a nice little plate, but the cake got eaten too quickly. This is a good one! Super easy. Super tasty. Just plain super. I hope you try it too!

Enjoy!

Darkest Chocolate Cake

I know I have been promising more recipes for awhile now. So, here is one of my favorites. It may seem a tad fussy and complicated, but it actually comes together really easily and it is oh so good! This is my own chocolate cake recipe. It is very dark, very moist, and full of chocolate flavor!

It is this recipe that I used to make the cupcakes that were on my treat table, paired with Chambord buttercream.

I have given you a chocolate cake recipe before. This is my newer and better version. It is also slimmed down a bit. An added bonus! As always, I recommend that you weigh your ingredients to get the most consistent results. If you do not have a kitchen scale or just don't want to weigh, please sift your flour into the measuring cup. Otherwise you will end up with too much flour and the recipe might not work for you.

Now with that word of caution, on to the good stuff! If you try making this cake yourself, let me know if you like it!

Darkest Chocolate Cake

1-3/4 cup (7 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (2-1/4 ounces) unsweetened cocoa, Dutched or a mix of Dutched and Natural (I use Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa)
1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
1 cup (7-3/4 ounces) packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons espresso powder
3/4 cup (6 liquid ounces) hot water (not boiling, hot tap water is fine)
1/2 cup (4 liquid ounces) canola oil
4 ounces good-quality dark chocolate, melted and cooled
3 whole large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/2 cup (4 liquid ounces) buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare one 8X3-inch round cake pan or two 8X2-inch round cake pans by greasing the bottom and sides with shortening and lining the bottom with a greased parchment paper round. Set the pan(s) aside.

Combine the flour, cocoa, sugars, baking soda, baking powder, salt and espresso powder in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix with the paddle attachment for at least 30 seconds. Add the hot water and the canola oil. Mix on low until moistened, then on medium for 1-1/2 minutes. Add the melted and cooled chocolate and mix to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, extracts, and buttermilk. Add in three parts to the flour mixture, mixing after each addition first on low then on medium for 20 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. The batter will be thin.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s) and bake for 45 to 55 minutes (35 to 40 minutes for 2-inch high pans) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs attached. Remove from oven and cool in pan(s) for 5 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack.

Midnight Dark Chocolate Cake

I've been tinkering with my recipe and have had some success! So, I'm sharing my recipe with you. I really think it is one of the best chocolate cakes I have had. I made the recipe initially by combining three of my favorite chocolate cake recipes. Then I tweaked and tweaked some more. I hope you like it!

One note before I give you the recipe. You will notice that I use weights for the measurements for a lot of the ingredients. If you have a kitchen scale, I encourage you to use the weights for the most accurate, consistent results. If you don't have a kitchen scale, get one! Or just use the cup measurements listed. For the flour, lightly spoon it or, even better, sift it into the measuring cup then level.

Midnight Dark Chocolate Cake
14 ounces cake flour (4 cups)
10 1/2 ounces granulated sugar (1 1/2 cups)
7 3/4 ounces light brown sugar (1 cup, packed)
4 1/3 ounces Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa (or other blend of natural and dutched cocoa)(1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
4 teaspoons instant espresso powder
3/4 cup canola oil
2 whole large eggs
4 yolks from large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and line with parchment two 8-inch round pans. Lightly dust with flour or cocoa powder and set aside

Place flour, sugars, cocoa, baking soda and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Here mine are, all in their little piles.

Mix for 30 seconds. After mixing, the dry ingredients should look like this.

In a small microwavable bowl, combine the water and espresso powder. Heat for one minute on high, or until hot but not boiling. Here is mine right out of the microwave.

Add the coffee and the oil to the flour mixture and mix on low until the dry ingredients are moistened, then mix on medium (high if using a hand-held mixer) for 1 1/2 minutes. I set my kitchen timer for this. You want to make sure you let it go the full time in order to set the structure of the cake. Here is what it will look like when it is done mixing.

In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, egg yolks, extracts and buttermilk.

Whisk it all together.

After your eggs are whisked, add them to the chocolate mixture in the mixer in three parts. After each addition, mix briefly on low and then on medium (high if using a hand-held mixer) for 20 seconds. Scrape the bowl with a spatula and make sure it is all incorporated together and smooth. It should look like this:

Pour it into your prepared pans.

Bake in your preheated 325 degree oven for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the top springs back when pressed lightly with a finger. The sides of the cake should not pull away from the pan before it is taken out of the oven. When the cake is done, cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Here is a picture of my little cake (I baked one 8X3 and one 6X3) after it has cooled and I have cut the dome off. I've been practicing leveling and torting my cakes using a long bread knife instead of any sort of leveler and I think I'm getting pretty good at it! You will see I've left a tiny lip on one side. Nobody's perfect, I guess!

I'm saving this little 6-inch cake to use in the August Miso Bakes challenge, which I will do next week.

The top, well, I ate it. And it was delicious! I pretty much had to eat it, right? I mean, I couldn't give you an untested recipe. That would just be wrong. I actually could have eaten that whole cake. It was really good. Dark, chocolatey, moist. Yum! Here is the top before I ate it. See the goodness inside that little piece?

I hope you enjoy my chocolate cake! Let me know if you try it and if you like it!