How many cake recipes do you have bookmarked? How often do you ogle at such beautiful creations (hello, Linda Lomelino) and wonder when you'll be able to produce anything just as great?
Does the idea of making a cake starting with the layers to the frosting and then assembling/decorating daunt you?
If you're a pro, I'll understand that it doesn't. Or maybe it still does. But the point is there's just something about making your own cake that is intimidating but oh so satisfying altogether!
So this chocolate buttercream frosted chocolate cake. Yep! You read that right; this is a double chocolate treat!
This recipe from Half Baked Harvest has been bookmarked and revisited countless times by me. I think what got me was how she called it a 'simple' cake and it truly is.
A simple moist cake and an ultra chocolaty frosting is what you'll be getting from Tieghan's recipe. And how adorable is the name Tieghan?!
And just look at that luscious frosting sandwiched between two beautiful cake layers!
And if you've never baked a layer cake before, you could do invert your top layer bottom-side up so you'll have a flat, even surface which I completely didn't do with this cake.
I picked this particular recipe to be my 'introductory' cake because again as I said it is simple. There were no specialty ingredients needed but go over your stuff and check if you have everything on hand before starting. Also, the instructions were very easy to follow so let's go through the process of baking a 2-layer cake!
First you have to prepare your pans and this article will provide you with some great tips!
Then it's just all about mixing your dry and wet ingredients separately at first then gradually combining them and adding the hot coffee last. Pour the batter onto your prepared tins. This part you can absolutely eyeball but if you're a bit paranoid like me then you can weigh them and try your best to make them as even as possible. But don't stress it!
When the cakes are done, you must let them cool completely.
And when your cakes have cooled, proceed to making the frosting!
I made a little change to the frosting because when I first tasted it (don't worry I won't judge if you do, too) I said 'hmm this is really good!' but quickly changed to 'this is really sweet!'.
Too sweet. Well, at least for me so I added a tiny amount of salt and whipped it up again. This time the sweetness wasn't overpowering.
But my mom said it was still too sweet for her taste.
Soo just adjust to your preferences, gal/pal!
Now the fun/scary part: assembling the cake. Don't worry! Joy The Baker got our backs! Seriously, read the article. Reread it if you must. Bookmark it!
Since I live in the PH and it can get quite hot and humid, I stacked, filled and haphazardly frosted the entire cake and chilled it for a good 20 minutes. I thought I did a crumb coating but I applied too much frosting for it to be just a crumb coat.
But Martha Stewart can show you how to do it properly. Then after it has chilled, I just continued applying more frosting and smoothing with an offset spatula until it looked nice to me.
I wanted to do something a little fancy and pipe some little blobs or stars around the cake but decided against it.
So I turned to Linda Lomelino's book, Lomelino's Cakes and saw a simple design on a few cakes. Take a spoon or a spatula and beginning at the very bottom of the cake swipe it upwards. Continue doing the same motion until you've pretty much covered the entire side of the cake. Try to smooth the top of the cake as much as you can.
If it's as smooth as you can get it, you can pipe in your message using some more buttercream which you can dye any color you want.
But I couldn't resist using these colorful candles! I didn't light them just because it takes me forever to take pictures and I don't want them to melt and have wax on the cake. Also if you own quite a variety of sprinkles, now is the perfect time to mix them all and get some use outta them!
The moment of truth, ladies and gentlemen!
The taste test.
The cake? Absolutely amazing. I think the cake has got to be one of my favorites! It is flavorful, chocolaty and moist and all the great things I envision a chocolate cake should be! I am definitely going to write this cake recipe down and use it again someday. It's that good!
For the frosting, I wished I added a bit more salt. Just to tone down the sweetness a little bit more but hey like I said, adjust to your preferences! Want it to be not too sweet? Add salt. Maybe half a teaspoon? Want it to be sweeter? Oh golly, then add more powdered sugar!
So if you want to surprise someone or you just want to surprise yourself that you can bake a 2-layer cake, then you've found the one!
Trust me, you can. If you have any worries about what may go wrong remember: 'Just wing it'. It will all come together in the end once you've put your finishing touches; a little swipe of the spatula here and a handful of sprinkles there... it will all turn out great!
Til the next post! Hoping you'll give baking a 2-layer cake a shot! Share via Facebook
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