SMS: Speakeasy? Or Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting & Ganache

The Speakeasy cake, the recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays this week, was chosen by Jeannette of The Whimsical Cupcake.  According to the Sweet Melissa Cookbook, Melissa "snuck a lot of booze into this cake!"  I knew I was making this cake for a family dinner where we have a pregnant family member so I decided to un-booze this Speakeasy... so I guess it really shouldn't be called a Speakeasy at all, huh?  Whatever you want to call this cake, it turned out absolutely amazing.  Probably one of my favorite cake recipes I've prepared to date.  It's very unique, not your every day cake - and I mean that in a very good way.

Chocolate cake with Raspberry & Ganache filling

There is a sense of accomplishment when a completed cake makes it to the table.  I prepare the batter while the fiancee usually greases and flours the pans.  I keep a watchful eye on it in the oven and prepare the frostings and fillings while leveling the layers and applying the frosting is done by the boy (or else there is generally some screaming and crying going on from my end).  So cakes are a task we complete together.  After it is all done, the garnish is put on top and it is ready to be served, we're both pretty proud to show off the finished product to the family.  The process is sometimes frustrating, usually messy and always fun.  So while cakes take a bit more time and effort than say, cookies or brownies, making a big fancy cake from start to finish every once and a while is a welcome request.  

Last weekend we made this one and it received great reviews from everyone who tasted it.  It was a birthday cake for a friend who likes chocolate and raspberry.  I made a two layer moist chocolate cake, put a generous amount of red raspberry preserves and some rich chocolate ganache in the middle, and frosted the whole thing with vanilla buttercream.  I'd say it was a success.  If you have a chocolate raspberry lover in your life, you might want to make this cake for them.

Chocolate cake with Raspberry & Ganache filling

Chocolate cake, adapted from Cookie Madness

ingredients:

1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup (75g) natural unsweetened cocoa
2 cups (260g) all-purpose flour

3 Tablespoons buttermilk powder (in place of actual buttermilk)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
1 cup (240g) golden brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
4 large eggs, room temp
3/4 cup (6 ¼ oz) water, room temp (also in place of actual buttermilk)**
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

directions:
Preheat to 350 F or 325 F if using black cake pans. Grease and flour (2) 9 inch round pans and line with parchment
Combine boiling water and cocoa in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, sift together dry ingredients (flour, buttermilk powder**, baking soda, and salt). Set aside.  In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla and set aside.
In large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars together.  Beat in eggs/vanilla mixture. 

Stir room temperature water** into cocoa mixture.  Add this cocoa mixture alternately with dry ingredients in 3 additions, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.
Divide evenly between the two prepared pans.  Lightly spin the pans on a hard surface to distribute the batter.
Bake 28-38 minutes (see note) or until a toothpick comes out barely clean. Cool and frost.

**If you happen to have buttermilk, which I never do, you can omit the buttermilk powder with the dry ingredients, and then use 3/4 (6 1/4 oz) of buttermilk instead of water called for at the end of the ingredients list.

Raspberry and Chocolate Ganache Fillings:

ingredients:

for raspberry layer:

10 ounce jar raspberry "spreadable fruit" (I used Smucker's Simply 100% Fruit Seedless Red Raspberry Spreadable Fruit, but you could you could just use preserves also)

for ganache layer:

9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/8 cup heavy whipping cream

directions: 

Place your leveled bottom cake layer on a cake plate.  Spread the red raspberry preserves onto this bottom layer to taste.  I used about 3/4 of the jar.

Place chopped chocolate in medium bowl. Bring heavy cream just to a boil in heavy medium saucepan.  Pour hot cream over the chocolate and let stand 1 minute, then stir until ganache is melted and smooth. Transfer ganache to medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ganache is thick enough to spread, stirring occasionally, for about 1 1/2 hours.  It should thicken to about the consistency of a heavy pudding and should not be runny.

Using an offset spatula, spread the ganache over the preserves, careful not to mix the two together too much - you want two separate layers.  Use as much ganache as you want - we probably used about 2/3 of the ganache recipe in this middle layer.  We froze the rest for later, but you could find other places to use it on this cake if you wanted.  For example, for some added chocolate, you could spread the remaining ganache on the top of the top layer and place the whole cake in the freezer for about 30 minutes until the ganache is set enough to be able to put buttercream frosting over it.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

ingredients:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

4 c sifted confectioner's sugar

2 tsp clear vanilla

pinch of sea salt

1/4 c milk, optional

Fresh raspberries and Raspberry preserves for garnish

directions:

Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and turn on the mixer.

Add all confectioners sugar and keep speed on low.

When all sugar is incorporated in, add vanilla and salt. Let mix for 5 min. If frosting is too stuff, add the milk by the tablespoon until the desired consistency is achieved.

To garnish:

After frosting, pipe a thin line around the edge of the top of the cake.  This will act as your glue to put the fresh raspberries on.  For extra raspberriness, spread a thin layer of preserves across the top of the cake, inside the ring of raspberries.  This will be easier to do after the cake has been refrigerated for a bit and the frosting is set.

Keep the cake in a cake dome in the refrigerator.  Remove from the fridge about 2 hours before serving.

Raspberry Preserves and Chocolate Ganache

Adding the garnish

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies

Occasionally I'll spent a lot of time preparing something, getting creative, making it fancy, and it just doesn't go over well.  Usually, though, the classic treats are home-runs.  When you want to make a dessert the family will surely go nuts for, stick to time-tested flavor combinations and family favorites.  These Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Brownies were one of those home-run desserts that was actually pretty easy to make, too.  If you're still searching for a recipe to make for the Fourth of July festivities you'll be attending, keep these in mind.  Moist, chocolately brownie layer on the bottom, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough-ish frosting in the middle, Rich chocolate ganache on top...  You'll definitely hit one out of the park with these.

Sweet Melissa Sundays #2: Brooklyn Blackout Cake

This week's selection from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book was chosen by Elyse of Confectionery Creations. She picked the chocolatey Brooklyn Blackout Cake on page 111. It is a rich, chocolatey Devil's Food-ish chocolate cake, iced with ganache and a Brownie Crumble. This means the recipe also involved making the chocolate cake on page 111 and the Brownies from page 82. Mmm, Mmm, Mmm.

As usual, I changed it up a wee bit. Since Daniel isn't such a chocolate fan, I didn't want to waste a ton of cake, so I opted to halve the recipe. Instead of one smaller cake, I made 2 little 4 inch cakes, 1 little mini angel food / bundt shaped cake, and 1 cupcake. But I did make the full amount of Brownies because... well, were both totally OK with having extra brownies around. First, I made the brownies. I baked them Saturday afternoon so they'd have enough time to cool and chill out before I chopped them to add to the ganache for the cake.

Chocolate Walnut Brownies (minus the Walnuts), pg 82


The Brownies came out incredibly good. Normally, my brownies, no matter what recipe I use, tend to be a little on the dry side the first day, but improve greatly the next day. These brownies were moist and perfect that very same night. By 10 oclock, just a few hours after they were made, we sampled and were both pleasantly surprised by them. And yes, they were even better the next day. I would definitely make this recipe again. The only difference I made from the original recipe was to omit the walnuts and to bake in an 8 x8 dish instead of a 9 x9.

And the Cake... well, it's really UGLY.



I didn't spread the frosting on the sides of the cake. And I could not get the layers to lay flat and even. My brownie crumble was so chunky that I could not get an even layer of it, so when the top layer was laid on top, it didn't sit straight. Oh well, so it's ugly. It'll still probably taste good! I suppose we shall see tonight!



Be sure to check out the rest of the Sweet Melissa Sundays members' posts on Brooklyn Blackout Cake - hopefully theirs came out cuter than mine!

S'mores Cupcakes!

Yesterday was the St. Patrick's Day dinner with Daniel's family, and I wanted to bring a dessert. I tried to think of a recipe that would be appropriate for St. Patty's day... should it be green? Have bailey's irish cream in it? Shamrock shaped? In the end, I decided none of the above, and went for a random s'mores cupcake. I kinda made this recipe up as I went along... I took my crust recipe from my Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake to use as the bottom of my cupcakes. For the cupcake itself, I took my new favorite cupcake recipe, and added the rest of the crust mixture that was left over after filling the paper liners, (and then some more graham cracker crumbs for good measure). Topped it with chocolate ganache and toasted marshmallows and we were set...

Graham Cracker Crust for Cupcakes:
About a quarter of a package of graham cracker crumbs
Approx a quarter stick of butter, softened
1/8 C sugar

Combine all of the above ingredients until well combined.
Divide equally between 15 cupcake liners, and press firmly into the bottom of the liners.
Bake ~ 3 - 5 minutes at 350. Remove from oven and let cool.



Smores Cupcake Batter: adapted from Billy's Vanilla Cupcakes (see previous post)
The Remainder of the graham cracker crust crumbs (I had approx 1/4 C or a little less remaining)
1.25 C + 2 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour
1.75 Tablespoons Cornstarch
1 c Sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 C butter, room temperature (unsalted, cut into 1 inch cubes)
2 eggs
1/2 C whole milk (but we had no milk, so I used buttermilk!!!)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat to 325.
In bowl of electric mixer, combine flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder and salt, and mix on low to combine.
Add butter 1 cube at a time until coated with flour.
In a large measuring cup, whisk eggs, milk and vanilla. With mixer on medium, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition. But until ingredients are incorporated, don't overbeat.
Divide batter evenly among the liners with crusts, filling until ~ 2/3 full. Bake 17-20 min (or until cake tester comes out clean), rotating pans halfway through.
Transfer to wire rack to cool.



Chocolate Ganache: from The Baking Bible
(recipe scaled down by 1/3)
1/2 C heavy cream
2/3 Tablespoon butter
2/3 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 C semisweet chocolate chips.

Place semisweet chips in a bowl.
In a small saucepan, bring the first three ingredients to a boil over high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
Pour cream mixture over chocolate and let stand 5 minutes.
Stir until smooth, let stand 15 minutes or until ganache reaches desired consistency (it will thicken as it cools more)
[But after stirring, I only let it sit about 5 minutes before applying it to my cupcakes because I wanted it to still be drippy when I put it on)
Spoon ganache onto cupcakes, and smooth with a small offset spatula.



For the toasted marshmallows, since I did not have a culinary torch on hand, I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper, and lined up the marshmallows on it.
With the broiler on low, put the cookie sheet on the top rack of the oven while keeping a watch on it. It goes from toasted to burnt FAST! After some ::cough:: slightly too toasted mallows, I had it right.
It was difficult to move the mallows from the parchment to the cupcakes, so I'm still trying to devise a better way to do this.