The hardest thing about this book is that a lot of the cakes require crazy ingredients or so many hours of prep that it's hard to justify the overall expense. I'm constantly looking out for any excuse to make the more elaborate cakes. Luckily during the months of September and October, I attended an average of one party per week. This cake was chosen for a party/baby shower to commemorate a friend suddenly welcoming two new adopted babies into his life.
This cake is flat-out beautiful, but it is expensive. For the filling, Rose recommends using a tart strawberry butter purchased from American Spoon. Unfortunately, American Spoon requires a minimum order of $15 plus a $10 shipping charge, and even at my most fanciful, I really can't justify spending $25 on this when a $3 jar of preserves will do. Add that to the ridiculous cost of chocolate and the other ingredients, and you're looking at a cake that's going to set you back couple of sawbucks.
And I'm done with my ranting now. The batter for this cake is just too darn pretty.
The last time I tried to make a multi-layered cake, I used two silicone pans and that proved to be a mistake. The cakes cooked unevenly and the flimsy pans resulted in what I would generously call a horrible mess. For this attempt, I splurged on two new pans.from the Wilton Decorator Preferred line. I was a little skeptical about them because most pans I've used in the past have been heavy and slick but these are cheap, lightweight, and don't have that slick feel that a pan with a non-stick coating has.
But I really shouldn't have been so skeptical. The cakes came out of the oven absolutely perfect. I was shocked by how easily they turned out and by how perfectly level they were on top. These things were so level that you could have used them for something that would require a really flat surface.
Again, I am bad at metaphors.
There is an awesome video online of Rose putting together the strawberry mousseline for this cake. And I have to say that even without the super-expensive strawberry butter, mine came out looking pretty comparable.
The glaze that covers this cake consists of chocolate, butter, and a scary amount of corn syrup. It was the easiest thing to do for this cake too.
I have a bad habit of suddenly finding that I need a thing at the last possible minute. One day, I was trying to split a cake and discovered that I had no toothpicks to help me keep the layers level. After rummaging around in my cabinets for a while, I discovered a packet of dry spaghetti which I snapped into short lengths and stuck into the cake to act as guides. I have never bothered to buy toothpicks or cake testers for this purpose since.
These markers act as a pretty good guide for keeping the cake level, but my unsteady hand always means that I end up with a little bit of bumpiness. Oh well.
Once I had the four layers assembled, I realized how freakin' ginormous this thing is. It is mos def the tallest cake I have made yet.
There was enough batter and mousseline left over for two cupcakes. These were promptly shoved into my face.
The glaze for this cake is then poured on top and applied to the sides. My glaze had the approximate consistency of lava and it never stopped oozing. I freaked out more than a little over the amount of glaze that ended up not on the cake but on the wax paper strips. I freaked out even more when pulling out the strips also pulled away small chunks of cake. Even after 24 hours in the ice box, chocolate was still oozing everywhere. It was like a monster. A horrible, sticky, chocolate monster.
But even though it was a mess on the outside, people at the party loved it. The contrast of the dark chocolate glaze and the light pink mousseline is beautiful.
The cake itself was great and the mousseline was delicious. Unfortunately, the chocolate glaze didn't sit very well with me. It had a sticky, almost slimy texture as I swallowed which left me feeling pretty gross. I probably would have really enjoyed the cake with just the mousseline or with a dark chocolate ganache coating instead. Luckily, the rest of the cake was so good that it was hard to be too bothered by the grossness of the glaze.
Bonus pics! Here are some pictures of me and a bit more than 200,000 of my closest friends:
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