Betcha didn’t know that did you? I wouldn’t have either if it hadn’t been for the tweet I received from Foodmentary this morning. Now that’s my kind of day to celebrate! Chocolate Cake Day, I can easily understand how it got its own day.
Finished Chocolate Butter Cake
Luckily, thanks to yesterday’s baking, I just happen to have a chocolate cake handy! From several other projects, I just happened to have some leftovers to use so I could ice the cake fast. The refrigerator spilled out both chocolate icing & chocolate marshmallow filling. Yum. So I stuck the 2 cake layers together using the chocolate marshmallow filling & frosted it with the chocolate icing I had. The icing was Chocolate Syrup Icing & has a deep chocolate flavor, but is a soft icing. But I wasn’t interested in doing roses on the cake so that was ok. Later in the evening, Sarah & I properly celebrated National Chocolate Cake Day with a slice of the cake.
This was the Chocolate Butter Cake from Whimisical Bakehouse Cookbook. It’s a very lovely chocolate cake for everyday usage. The recipe is definitely a keeper & I have no doubt I’ll be using it again. Probably for a friend’s cake later this week.
Mixing up the chocolate glaze.
After icing our cake, I turned my attention to the small heart cakes. I didn’t want to ice them. When I had been drooling over all the lovely things in my book, Whimisical Bakehouse Cookbook, I had noticed a Chocolate Glaze they say they use a great deal in their bakery. I can see being able to do all kinds of things with it so naturally I had to try it. Turn to page 39 for this delicious chocolate glaze.
I followed the directions carefully, but I did leave out the step of straining it before using it. I’m not expecting perfection in the smoothness of the glaze because of skipping that step, but I’ll get a good feel for making it & even more importantly the taste of it.
As you can see, even without straining it, the glaze covered the cake nicely.
Even without straining it, it poured very nicely over the small cakes. I had a couple of uniced cream cheese cookies left & poured the glaze over one of them. The cookie was not a success. First of all, the glaze did not set up well enough to be used on a cookie. Cakes are eaten with a fork; cookies are not. Secondly, the heat from the glaze softened the cookie too much. If you bake your cookies crisp, it might not be a problem. Mine are on the soft side so being softened more did not give a good texture taste.
Just a few frills.
I melted a few candy melts in a baggie in the microwave & quickly added a few finishing touches to the small cakes. Easy peasy as the saying goes. Naturally, I was curious about both the cake & the glaze. Gave the glaze approximately an hour to dry. Then Sarah & I tasted them. I miss Jim’s help as he was my best taste tester, but right now sweets don’t get along with him. I liked the glaze; Sarah did not. Now Sarah is a VERY picky eater so I don’t worry about it if she doesn’t like something. However, I know I have a huge hit on my hands if she DOES like it. <G>
Tags: candy melts, chocolate butter cake, chocolate glaze, chocolate marshmallow filling, heart cake, Jim, National Chocolate Cake Day, tweet, Whimisical Bakehouse Cookbook