Belated Birthday Baking Bounty

In our home we celebrated a birthday (or two!) a little late this year, but with great fanfare.  Having recently made an AMAZING chocolate cake, I knew where to begin - with the Deep, Dark Chocolate Cake in BakeWise.  This cake is truly great.  Having now used it twice, with folks who really know and love chocolate, it is a decided hit, and will be my go-to chocolate cake now.

I decided to top the cake with The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook's Vanilla Buttercream frosting.  While the proportions are estimates, certainly, their instruction to whip the frosting for much longer than you think you need to is well taken.  The frosting is utterly light, yet so rich!

I also tried something new, a suggestion from BakeWise (this Shirley O. Corriher knows what she's doing around a cake!).  A variation on the chocolate cake recipe calls for a "Cake Soaking Solution."  While I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I did use it to create a light syrup, which is poured over the cake layer when the syrup is hot, melting a bit of the chocolate and adding extra moisture to the cake before it is frosted.

 When I had frosted the first layer and placed the second layer, this looked like a giant whoopie pie, which made me giggle and consider (if only for a moment) simply leaving it in this state.

However, I decided to continue with the rest of the assembly.  I added another drizzle of the hot soaking solution to the top layer of the cake.  It lends the cake something of a glazed effect, and makes the cake remain moist and luscious much longer!  Then I added in the remaining frosting, swirling the top into a slight, snowy peak.

As a final touch, I added some dark chocolate shavings to the top of the cake - a mature finish for a decidedly indulgent cake.

When it came time to serve the cake, I cut small pieces, as this is RICH.  However, everyone devoured it, and my 10-year-old niece enjoyed a second piece, in honor of her belated birthday too.



Even three days after the cake was baked, and two and half days after assembly, it had not dried out at all.  The remaining piece was gobbled up, and just as enjoyable, on day four!  Mmm...

The Adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever, Part 1

The first in a multi-part series...

It all began with a little harmless conversation about how much my brother likes chocolate...in cake, in doughnuts, in cookies...and this spun wildly out of control, into a diabolical plot.  And thus the weekend before Labor Day I found myself, and my kitchen, covered in chocolate and filled with the scent of cake...

The first step in making our dreams reality was the cake itself.  I have a new book, BakeWise by Shirley O. Corriher (and published by Simon & Schuster), that is a phenomenal resource not only for recipes, but also for the ins and outs, the hows and whys of baking.  Inside this tome, I found the recipe for this dream cake.

Thus began my adventure...which started with boiling water mixed with sugar and cocoa, then blended with oil and eggs, then the dry ingredients.  This is NOT a cake for the faint-hearted.

This batter was enriched with buttermilk, and boy was it dark, yet light.  I got it into the oven, and watched it turn into a lovely set of 9-inch cake rounds, and one little sample cake in a ramekin.

I sampled the little cake, just to ensure the cake was a success.  It was light and moist, with a tender crumb and rich, chocolatey flavor.  This is GOOD cake!

After the layers cooled, I wrapped them carefully (and perhaps a bit obsessively) and froze them.  Freezing not only makes it easier to put a cake together in just a little time, as the baking is already done, but it also makes it easier to transport the cake for final assembly for birthday celebrations in far-off cities.

Mmm, cake...

Stay tuned for more of The Adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever...