Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake & Chocolate Frosting

So who doesn't love chocolate? I do and especially during those fun times of the month where you want to bite everyone's head off and you want to just surround your self with chocolate and consequences be darned! Well this is one of those recipes that require a lot of work and dishes but are so worth it in the end! This cake is the moistest chocolate cake I have ever tasted and the icing even though I messed it up was really yummy! The recipe was featured on Best Bites & comes from Cook's Illustrated. So not my original recipe but to good not to share. I guarantee that you will impress anyone that you make this for!

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Ingredients

12 Tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter (very soft)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting pans
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsley chopped
1/4 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 cup hot water
1 3/4 C sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon table salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs, plus 2 large egg yolks

Directions

Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat to 350 degrees. Grease two 9-inch round by 2 inch high cake pans with butter ( I didn't use butter, I used non stick spray); dust pans with flour and knock out excess. Combine chocolate, cocoa powder, and hot water in medium heatproof bowl; set bowl over saucepan containing 1 inch of simmering water and stir with rubber spatula until chocolate ins melted, about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup sugar to chocolate and stir until glossy, 1-2 minutes. Remove bowl from heat and set aside to cool.

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Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. Combine buttermilk and vanilla in small bowl. In bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, whisk eggs and yolks on medium-low speed until combined, about 10 seconds. Add remaining 1 1/4 C sugar, increase speed to high, and whis until fluffy and lightened in color, 2-3 minutes. Replace whisk with paddle attachment. Add cooled chocolate mixture to egg/sugar mixture and mix on medium speed until thoroughly incorporated, 30-45 seconds, pausing to scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula as needed. Add softened butter 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing about 10 seconds after each addition. Add about 1/3 of flour mixture; followed by half of buttermilk mixture mixing until incorporated after each addition (about 15 seconds.) Repeat using half of remaining flour mixture and all of remaining buttermilk mixture (batter may appear separated.) Scrape down sides of bowl and add remaining flour mixture; mix at medium low speed until batter is thoroughly combined, about 15 seconds. Remove bowl from mixer and fold batter once or twice with rubber spatula to incorporate any remaining flour. Divide batter evenly between prepared cake pans; smooth batter to edges of pan with spatula.

Bake cakes until toothpick inserted into center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 25-30minutes. Cool cakes in pans 15 minutes, then invert onto wire rack. Cool cakes to room temperature before frosting, 45-60 minutes.


Chocolate Frosting

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Ingredients

16 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
8 Tbs (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbs corn syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp table salt
1 1/4 cups cold heavy cream

Directions

Melt Chocolate in heatproof bowl set over a saucepan containing 1 inch of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside. Meanwhile, heat butter in small saucepan over medium-low heat until melted. Increase heat to medium; add sugar, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt and stir with heatproof rubber spatula until sugar is dissolved, 4-5 minutes. Add melted chocolate, butter mixture, and cream to clean bowl of stand mixer and stir to thoroughly combine.
Place mixer bowl over ice bath ( a big bowl with ice all in it) and stir mixture constantly with rubber spatula until frosting is thick and just beginning to harden against sides of bowl, 1-2 minutes (frosting should be 70 degrees). Place bowl on stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment and beat on medium-high speed until frosting is light and fluffy, 1-2 minutes. Stir with rubber spatula until completely smooth. If the frosting is to soft just let it sit in the fridge until its a little more set.

* Don't make the mistake that I did and not get enough heavy cream. I had a cup of heavy cream so I just put 1/4 of milk figuring it wouldn't hurt it. Wrong. It did not get whippy at all. It just stayed a liquid. So I added a little over a cup of powdered sugar to the icing and it hardened it up and actually ended up really yummy. So it was a awesome mistake to make.

2 comments:

  1. OMG. That looks so good. Too bad I'm too lazy to make it. My homemade cakes never turn out right. Why can't you live closer to me? LOL.

    ReplyDelete