Big Birthday Cake for my Little Brother

My “little” brother turned 30 this year, and that makes me feel older than my own 30th birthday did! My brother is the general manager of a local bar, so we decided to celebrate his birthday there and let some of his staff and customers in on the celebration. I decided  I’d make two cakes for his birthday, one for our family dinner, and one for the celebration at the bar.

The big cake was a moist chocolate cake covered in chocolate ganache with a hint of Chambord, filled with the same ganache and seedless raspberry jam. Yum, yum, yum. I am a big fan of chocolate and raspberry, and this was the best combination yet! I also made a small amount of white chocolate ganache flavored with Chambord to use for decoration. Obviously I need to work on writing on cake…Ganache probably wasn’t the easiest to start with! The white chocolate, however messy, was a great contrast to the rest of the cake,

This cake recipe is large..it made 2 full 9×13 layers! I ended up mixing the batter in halves based on the suggestion of Deb at Smitten Kitchen, the blogger I got the recipe from…the full recipe would have been way too much for my mixer to handle.

Chocolate Butter Cake with Bittersweet Chambord Ganache
adapted from  Smitten Kitchen

Cake:
5 1/3 C. cake flour
5 1/3 C. sugar
2 2/3 C. unsweetened cocoa powder (not dutch process)
6 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp salt
5 1/3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 2/3 C. buttermilk
5 large eggs + 1 large egg yolk
2 2/3 C. freshly brewed coffee
1 C. seedless raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 9×13 inch pans with baking spray, and line bottom of pans with parchment paper.

Combine dry ingredients in large mixer bowl. Whisk ingredients until combined. Add buttermilk and butter and mix on low until moistened. Increase speed to medium high and mix until batter is light and fluffy, between 2-3 minutes.

Combine eggs and coffee in a medium bowl, and whisk until combined. Add to batter in 3 additions, scraping down the bowl after each addition and mixing until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pans, each pan uses about 5 1/2 cups batter.

Bake at 350 55-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.

Let cool in pans on wire rack 10-15 minutes, then carefully turn cakes out onto rack to cool completely.

Bittersweet Chambord Ganache

2 lbs bittersweet chocolate chips, I used Ghiridelli
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 C. heavy cream
1/3 C. chambord liqueur

Place chocolate chips in large bowl. Heat cream in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, removing from heat just before it boils. Pour over chocolate chips, and let sit for one minute. Whisk until smooth, then add butter, continuing to whisk until smooth. Stir in liqueur, and let cool to room temperature.

Assemble cake:

Place one layer on cake board and top with a thin layer of cooled ganache. Let ganache set, then spread 1 cup raspberry jam on top. Top with 2nd layer, and apply thin coat of ganache as a crumb coat to top and sides of cake. Let ganache set, then spread the remaining ganache over top and sides of cake. Top with fresh raspberries.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!!

Awesome cakes for awesome friends! Part Two..

Vanilla Cake with Chocolate Ganache Filling and

Tiramisu Buttercream

Cake and Buttercream from Love and Olive Oil

(3) 8-inch cake pans used

Approximately 18 servings

3 3/4 cups cake flour (or 3 3/4 c all purpose flour, minus 1/2 teaspoon)

2 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon plus 2 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 sticks (10 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups plus 1/3 cup buttermilk
5 whole eggs
2 egg yolks

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Prepare your pans- I use Baker’s Joy spray, and place a circle of parchment paper in the bottom of each pan to aid in removing the cakes later.

Combine dry ingredients in large bowl, whisking with wire whisk to make sure they’re combined well. Add butter and 1 1/4 c buttermilk, mixing well on low speed with electric mixer. Increase mixer speed to medium, and beat 2-3 minutes and batter is light and fluffy.

In a second bowl, combine eggs, egg yolks, remaining buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat until well blended. Add liquid mixture to dry mixture  a little at a time, making sure the batter is mixed well after each addition.

Pour batter into pans, filling each pan approximately half full. Bake 28-30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Remove cakes from oven, and cool in pans on cooling rack. Once layers are cool, turn out of pans onto cooling rack and cool completely. Turning out of pans too soon will result in a broken layer. Trust me. Been there done that, twice!

Chocolate Ganache from Savory Sweet Life

8 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream

Heat cream over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Pour cream over chocolate chips in medium sized bowl. Let sit for a minute, then stir until chocolate is melted. Refrigerate for a 5 minutes to set. For this recipe, i wanted a pourable consistency for my filling, so I used it pretty quickly. For a spreadable consistency, refrigerate 30 minutes, removing from fridge often to stir and check consistency.

Tiramisu Buttercream

6 large egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds (5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons warm water
1 tablespoon instant coffee

In a glass bowl sitting over a pan of gently boiling water, beat egg whites and sugar until hot to the touch and it resembles marshmallow creme. Remove from heat, beat on high speed until stiff peaks form.  Add butter and vanilla,  beating well until combined and light and fluffy. Dissolve instant coffee in water, and add 1 tbsp at a time until desired flavoring is reached.

I’ll post instructions for cake assembly later.

Let me know what you think!

Awesome cakes for awesome friends! Part One..

These are my awesome friends, Kaytie and Arni. Kaytie and Arni got married in Iceland (Arni’s home country) a few weeks ago. Aren’t they gorgeous?? Seriously, i think they moonlight as models!

While the wedding and reception were in Iceland, obviously not everyone could make the trip with them- so they held another reception last night, complete with the wedding dress and suit..like I said, absolutely gorgeous!

The food was great, pulled pork and ribs provided by Kaytie’s dad..The man knows how to cook! Instead of having another wedding cake, a bunch of friends and family pitched in and provided a dessert buffet. This is where my cakes come in! I love to bake, I love my friends, I love to bake for my friends..so it was a no-brainer! I’d made an awesome (if i do say so myself) chocolate cake for Kaytie’s birthday a while ago, so I offered to make it again (with some improvements and additions) along with another cake as well.

I made a Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling, Chocolate Ganache and Chocolate Buttercream topped with White Chocolate shavings, as well as a White Cake with  Chocolate Ganache Filling and Tiramisu Buttercream. I’ll post one recipe today, and be back later with the other recipe as well as directions for assembling the cakes.

My contributions to the dessert buffet

Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling, Chocolate Ganache and Chocolate Buttercream

Cake and Raspberry filling
Adapted from Love and Olive Oil :

I made three (3) 8-inch layers, which provided about 18 servings.

3 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee
3 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk (or mix 1 1/2 cups milk with 1 tablespoon vinegar and let curdle)
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
 
Preheat oven to 300 degrees, and prepare your pans. I use Bakers Joy spray, and line the bottom of my pans with circles of parchment paper to ease in removing the cakes from the pans.
 
Pour the hot coffee over the chopped chocolate, and stir until chocolate is melted. I love this part, and I don’t drink coffee!
 
Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl, and stir with wire whisk to assure they’re combined.
 
In a second large bowl, beat eggs with mixer until they’re thickened a bit, and have a nice light yellow color. Add the buttermilk, chocolate-coffee mixture, oil and vanilla slowly and beat until combined. Slowly add dry ingredients while beating on medium speed. Continue to beat until combined.
 
Divide the batter between your prepared pans- if using 8 inch pans, they’ll be about half full.
 
Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven, and place pans on cooling rack. Once cool, turn cakes out of pans onto cooling racks, remove parchment paper and cool completely. Attempting to turn them out too soon results in a broken layer..Another lesson learned the hard way!!
 
Raspberry filling:
 
10 oz raspberries, fresh or frozen
1/4 c. sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
 
Rinse or defrost raspberries, and combine in blender with sugar and cornstarch. Blend until smooth. If seedless filling is desired, press through mesh strainer to remove seeds. I leave the seeds in my filling.
I made a boo-boo and forgot to heat my filling, so it wasn’t thick..but it still tasted great and worked well in the cake. If you’re good at reading directions, like I very obviously am not, then go ahead and heat your filling over medium heat until it boils. Stir constantly. This, you direction followers, thickens the filling!!
 
 
Chocolate Ganache
From Savory Sweet Life
 
12 oz semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
 
Heat cream over medium high heat until it begins to boil. Immediately pour over chocolate chips in a medium sized bowl. Let sit for a minute or two, then stir until smooth. For a spreadable consistency, refrigerate for approximately 30 minutes, removing from fridge occasionally to stir and check consistency.
 
Chocolate Buttercream
Adapted from Savory Sweet Life
 
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp vanilla
4 tbsp heavy cream
1/8 cup cocoa powder
 
Beat butter with mixer until creamy. Add powdered sugar, a little at a time (again to avoid the massive white sugar cloud in the kitchen..no contact highs for my little guy..Sorry Ben!) until combined. Add vanilla, cream, cocoa powder and salt, and beat on medium speed until frosting is nice and fluffy. If you want a thicker consistency, add more powdered sugar. If you prefer thinner frosting, add more cream.
 
Enjoy, and let me know what you think!!
 
Beth