Me: Lalala…
Email box: Cake recipe? Cake recipe?
Me: O_o
Chocolate cake
Okay so the cake itself I got from here.
Two notes. First, I didn’t have buttermilk so I added 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar to regular milk and allowed it to clot for about 10 minutes. Second, this is a lot of cake. It worked for my purposes, because I wanted to make a statement, but this makes 3 pans, and you could probably half the recipe and make 2 thinner ones without two much trouble.
Strawberry filling
2 cups frozen strawberries
1/2 cup sugar or so
1 Tbsp lemon/lime juice – I just kind of squirted it in there
1 cup water
3 Tbsp corn starch
Mix cornstarch with 1/2 cup water. Place strawberries, sugar and the remaining water into a pan. Add lemon juice. bring to boil over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon. Just as it starts to bubble, add the cornstarch water, and then cook it, stirring, until it bubbles and looks thick enough.
There are many versions of this. I wanted mine to have uniform consistency and I wanted it to be thicker. No matter how much cornstarch you add, it will still run, so when you are frosting the cake, you need to make a ring of butter cream around the edge and spoon the strawberry filling in there. I also pipe a little more buttercream on top of it to “seal” it before slapping more cake on there.
Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream
This explains different buttercreams. I used her recipe which can be found here.
I followed it exactly, except I melted 2/3 cup Hershey’s chocolate chips in the microwave, let it cool, and then stirred it in at the last minute.
She explains the process very well, so just a few notes.
Grease is the enemy here, so I usually put a tiny bit of vinegar on a paper towel and wipe down the bowl where egg white will be.
If you don’t have a double boiler and making it work with a mixing bowl inside the pot, make sure the bowl is stable. You can clump up some aluminum foil and set it on the bottom of your pot with water to keep the bowl from touching the pot’s bottom.
I would suggest using hand mixer on low speed for the boiling part because it takes a long time with a whisk. I work out with hand weights a lot and my arm got a bit tired, so if you arm gets tire after brushing your hair, deploy hand mixer. PS. Don’t burn yourself.
Make sure butter is mixed in before adding more. There will come a point where it looks like you couldn’t possibly mix more butter in. You can.
Assembly
Cake
Ring of buttercream around the edge
Strawberry filling
Thin layer of buttercream spread over the strawberry
Cake
Ring of buttercream around the edge
Strawberry filling
Cake
Buttercream
Yay!
Oh thank you for the recipes! Printed, and saved as pdf. Can’t wait for the end of the month when I get to make it for my birthday!
My sister swears by powdered buttermilk. She loves the fact she can make up what she needs for a recipe without trying to figure out what to use the rest of a carton for. I have done the vinegar trick myself.
Hi,
I don’t mind baking cakes and I can (sometimes make them look good) but I find that it’s very had to balance the look/taste as quite frequently the cake looks fab, but is a bit meh ???? in the taste department. I have to say, I’m much more interested in the taste of a cake….
On a ‘pick-me-up’ note any time I feel sad or low I look up ‘cakefails’ on the internet… it always make me happy… especially the hedgehog one!!!
Remember cake is for eating, not looking at!!!
Oh and thanks for all the snippet etc , it helps! As someone working in a hospital right now, I’m not getting time to bake!
C
I think I will stick to buying and eating.
Next time you might want to try it with the buttermilk as I’ve always noticed that buttermilk makes all cakes better. Also, this picture is really reminding me of a chocolate stout cake recipe from a brewery in Oregon that is definitely the most amazing cake ever. It’s in the book called American Cakes.
I have a gre2t recipe that uses plain Greek yogurt. I think that would stand in well for the buttermilk
I tried the recipe. It came out well. This is the 2nd time I have frosted a cake, the 1st time was a disaster, because I tried to pipe the frosting.
Here the result.
Here is the result with Strawberries and cherries.
Ooh ???????? lovely looking cake. Hope taste delicious ????.
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I like that cake recipe a lot. I have 3 boys and they can put that cake down in about a day. I have made a peanut butter filling for it, and I want to try a toffee flavored filling. The strawberry filling sounds delicious too!
OMG
You changed my life this weekend. We made this cake and frosting, adjusted for raspberries instead of strawberries, and it was honestly the best thing ever. This cake and frosting combo beats any cake we’ve bought outside of the home.
Ruined. We are ruined. However, we also now have the BEST ever cake to share for birthdays.
Thanks!
1) I am now seriously craving cake.
2) You can ‘make’ buttermilk with distilled vinegar?? This is a thing??
3) Obviously, I do NOT perform the baking functions within my household.
…I can make a seriously mean Japanese steakhouse chicken and steak with fried rice though.