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>

Whimisical Bakehouse Cookbook by Kaye Hansen & Liv Hansen

January 24, I received 2 cake books in the mail. One, Whimisical Bakehouse Cakebook, I have been lusting after since before our wedding in August. The book is written by a mother & daughter team by the names of Kaye Hansen & Liv Hansen. They don’t do fondant or gumpaste as they want everything on their cakes to taste delicious. That’s a wonderful philosophy!

On cakecentral.com, I had heard many glowing reports on their book and even more on their recipes which is why I have been so anxious to get the book. It’s a late Christmas present from Sarah, my youngest daughter. Between bouts of sickness & not finding the book locally, I’m just now getting it. Whimisical Bakehouse Cookbook was well worth the wait. I literally spend a couple of days drooling over the pages & incapable of deciding where to start. If you don’t already own this book, find it, buy it. It’s that simple.

Small heart cake pans measuring 4-inches across.

The decision was finally made to start with the Chocolate Butter Cake on page 65. The cake baked up beautifully. I made 2 6-inch layers and a handful of small heart-shaped cakes. Can hardly wait to try it. If I had been able to decide earlier in the day, I could have iced it & tasted it. But that will have to wait for another day. In fact, to be honest, I was so excited that I forgot to take any pictures of the process or the finished cake. That’s excited. I do have some pictures of the book  though for you to view.

Recipe page showing how I mark them.

If you’ll notice the shot of the recipe, I have an inked star by the name. That’s a little tip you might want to remember for your own  cooking adventures. Recipes in a cookbook that meet with my approval, I mark with a star & I also mark them in the index to make it easier to find recipes I’m trying to find & know I have in one of my cookbooks. If I don’t like it at all or think it could use huge improvements, I take the pen & X it out in ink so I don’t make that mistake twice.