Designer Chocolate Baby Grands

I’ve been really looking forward to making this recipe.  Unfortunately, my rendition didn’t quite live up to my expectations.  I am attributing this to my own execution of the recipe and I will probably have to try this recipe again when I have a little more time.

The cake batter is the same batter that we used for the ice cream sandwhich a couple of weeks ago.  We really enjoyed that cake so I knew that I wouldn’t be disappointed as far as that went.   The batter mixed up easily.  I did, however, have the same problem as last time when the cocoa and water turns into a paste rather than a smooth mixture.  I am taking comfort with the fact that other people seem to be having the same problem as me and since it doesn’t seem to affect the outcome, I am just not worrying about it.  I made what I see as my biggest mistake when I filled my cupcake liners too full.  It seemed like I had about 3/4 of an inch left from the top but I only ended up with 9 cupcakes and clearly after they were baked they were not flat like in the picture.

The second step was to take the hot cupcakes and poke about a dozen holes in each one with a skewer.  Then we were to pour milk chocolate ganache over the top of the cupcakes and into the holes.   I had two sizes of skewers and I opted for the smaller one to poke the holes.  I seemed to have problems getting the ganache down inside though, and I would probably use the larger one next time.  I did feel like I had filled them pretty well, but after they sat a while I could see that there was still space in a lot of the holes.  Because of time, I did not go back and make more ganache and fill them in.

The third and final step is to make the Lacquer Glaze.   This is the part that I expected would make these little cakes over-the-top delicious.  In the picture it looks so thick and smooth and so I  expected a fudge like texture.  My glaze, however, turned out pretty thin and runny, even after it cooled a bit.  So the million dollar question is — is the glaze in the picture actually thicker than mine, or is it just that the cupcakes are very flat which makes a thicker layer of glaze possible?  I think I made the glaze correctly,  but I was having problems with my thermometer so maybe I didn’t do it exactly right. I’m not sure.

Anyway, the cupcakes were good, but not exceptionally better than any other chocolate cupcake.  Even my son, who is not really a chocoholic like myself, thought the glaze needed to be thicker. So I will have to leave it for now but when I get some extra time, I will be cooking these up again.

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Chocolate Banana Stud Cake

This weekend’s project was Chocolate Banana Stud Cake.  The recipe was fairly basic which is a good thing in my book.  I started by making a paste of cocoa and boiling water.  This is added to a mashed banana, sour cream, eggs and vanilla.  Then the dry ingredients are added alternately with butter.  Then it’s into the oven to bake.  I decided to make two 6″ rounds so that i could sample one and have one to give away.

After baking I let the cakes cool for about 15 minutes and then I removed them from the pan.  The first one crumbled a fair amount on the bottom, most likely due to the fact that I didn’t have parchment in the pan because I ran out and was too lazy to run to the store.  The second cake came out perfectly, however, so I figured I could eat the crumbled one and give the nice one away.

A basic ganache is made and allowed to thicken up over several hours before icing the cakes.  Everything went exactly as directed in the recipe.  The most time consuming part of making this is probably placing the chocolate chips on the outside.  I practiced on “my” cake and spaced the chocolate chips out a fair amount which ended up looking only so-so.  For the second cake I placed the chips closer together and it definitely looked much nicer.  This cake is going to go to some friends who took it upon themselves to help us out a few weeks ago.  They just called us up and told us they were going to take care of an assignment we had because they knew we were going to be gone most of the week and wouldn’t have much time.  It was very sweet of them.

We liked the cake a lot.  I think that the banana flavor was a little too subtle though, and next time I would definitely add more banana.  Despite that, it is very good cake — moist and flavorful. We will definitely make it again.

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Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwich

I have been looking forward to making this cake for the last couple of weeks.  The first time I read through the recipe I knew that I wanted to use starlight mint ice cream for this.  I know – the flavor suggestions were much more sophisticated — like coffee, vanilla bean or dulce de leche.  But for me, I could just taste this cake made with my favorite ice cream.    I have to tell you that I was not disappointed.

This recipe uses a chocolate cake that has oil in it rather than butter.  Because of this, the cake stays soft when frozen.  It is the same cake used for Rose’s German Chocolate Cake.  I wanted to try the sandwich rather than the cake so I made a half recipe in a ten inch cake pan.

The cake went together quite easily, although the first step had me worried that I had ruined the whole thing.  I was to whisk cocoa and boiling water together until smooth.  What I ended up with was a very thick paste.  I added a little extra water and didn’t know what to do so I forged ahead.  I was so sure that it had to be wrong that I kept recalculated my half recipe to see if I had added too much cocoa or not enough water.  I was worried right up until the end when it said the batter should be like a thick soup, which seemed about right to me.  I baked it for only about 20 minutes when it seemed done so I took it out.  It didn’t take long to cool and then I sliced it in half and assembled it.  I was quite impressed that the cake held together very well even when thinly sliced and had no problem moving it to be assembled.

Next came the Snowball Hot Fudge Sauce.  I melted the butter and chocolate in the microwave.  The cream and sugar are brought to a boil on the stove and then added to the chocolate mixture.  I had  no problems at all.  The sauce thickens up quite a bit as it cools.

The sandwich held together just fine for eating with your fingers and I liked the idea of using a dipping sauce as Rose suggested.  But it also looks great served on a plate with the sauce drizzled over the top.

We loved the overall flavor and textures.  I felt like this particular sauce was extremely sweet and in my opinion you could cut the sugar in half or even just go with a plain ganache.   But this recipe is definitely a keeper and one we will make again.

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