Friday, August 7, 2009

Youngest Hawthorne Requested A Chocolate Cake For His Birthday Today.

Happy Birthday, Youngest Hawthorne! Today is Youngest Hawthorne's birthday and he requested chocolate cake with chocolate icing and, of course, Rosie was happy to oblige. You know I love requests. Just Ask Rosie. Anything. At rosiehawthorne@aim.com. I wanted to make a decadently rich cake for him and I succeeded.
Here's a slice:
The absolute BEST brownies I've ever had the pleasure to eat - I call them Supernatural Brownies- were from a recipe I got from Kelly, of Evil Shenanigans blogdom.
What I wanted to do with Youngest Hawthorne's cake was start out with Kelly's brownie recipe and transform it into a cake. Now Kelly has gone to culinary school and all her measurements are by weights - not cups or fractions thereof, but ounces and tenths of ounces. I wanted to make a cake similar to the brownies but at the same time I wanted to make it more accessible to the home cook, who probably does not have a digital scale. Here's the recipe for my Supernatural Cake, which I adapted from Kelly's brownies: 1 stick butter (Land o' Lakes unsalted) 3 1/2 ounces Lindt Intense Dark Chocolate (I know I said I was going to do things in cups and fractions and tablespoons and teaspoons, but the Lindt bar of chocolate had 3 1/2 ounces written right there on the wrapper. I believe if you had a 4 ounce bar of chocolate, the outcome would not suffer at all.) 2 TB water 1 TB Espresso Roast coffee beans, ground 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup honey 1 stick butter 4 large eggs 1 TB vanilla 2 cups cake flour 1/2 cup cocoa powder, special dark 1 tsp salt 2/3 cup dark chocolate chips
First, I combined a 3 1/2 oz. bar of Lindt Intense Dark chocolate with a stick of Land o' Lakes unsalted butter and nuked them. Stir until well mixed. Set aside.
2 TB water 1 TB ground espresso beans I nuked the water to boiling then mixed in the ground coffee to dissolve.
And I set aside 2/3 cup extra dark chocolate chips. Premier Baking Pieces.
Here are the dry ingredients: 2 cups cake flour 1/2 cup cocoa powder 1 tsp salt Sift the dry ingredients and set aside.
2 cups sugar 1/2 cup honey 1 stick butter, softened
Mix all together.
I mixed it with a pastry blender.
Add in 4 large eggs.
And the vanilla. Pour in the coffee mixture.
And pour in the nuked bar of dark chocolate and butter.
Here are the wet batter, the sifted dry mixture, and the chips.
Mix the dry into the wet, stirring to combine.
Fold in the chocolate chips.
I buttered my cake pans, added a round of buttered parchment paper, and poured the batter in, smoothing it. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 35 - 40 minutes. After 15 minutes, cover with foil.
Remove from oven and let sit for a while, then invert onto a rack to cool. On to my icing:
1 stick Land o' Lakes unsalted butter, softened 1/2 cup dark cocoa powder (The Special Stuff.) 2 cups confectioner's sugar 1 TB vanilla 1/3 cup milk
I added the cocoa powder to the softened butter and mixed well.
Then I added the confectioner's sugar, mixing well.
Add in enough milk until you have a nice spreading consistency.
Here's the first frosted layer.
Top layer, with fanciful flourishes of waves. Now I have all the side to deal with.
For the side of the cake, I pulled out a bar of Ghiradelli white chocolate and a Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate.
I added maybe a 1/2 teaspoon of vegetable oil into each of the chocolates and nuked, then stirred until nice and smooth.
And I drizzled the melted chocolates down the side of the cake. And swizzled some white chocolate on top. Now, I've been debating internally, as in arguing with myself. You may have noticed something in the first sentence above and in two other captions above: I said "side of the cake." Not "sides of the cake," which really sounds better and is more melodious and flowing. But the cake is round, so it's a side. One continuous side. Had I made a square or rectangular cake, then it would be "sides" since there are 4 distinct "sides." Debate over. Here are my ooey gooey money shots:
The cake is more fudge than cake. It is dense. Which is what I wanted. When you cut a slice of cake/fudge, the creamy frosting/ganache/icing in the center just deliciously oozes out.
This is everything I wanted. In parts, you experience a cake-like texture. In other parts, a dense, decadent fudge. Then the chunks of the chips, that melted, and spread out, then hardened up again. And the chocolate? Pure chocolate-gasm.
What's not to love?
Here's Youngest Hawthorne with one of his presents. Can you guess what it is? No?
Here's the Birthday Boy, with flash this time, sporting his new Polarized Shades. That's a self-portrait of me in the back. I'll have to find the one of YH ready to go to the prom and my pic in the back. We looked a lot alike. Happy Birthday, Youngest Hawthorne. I love you.

4 comments:

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Rosie Hawthorne said...

Hello Dove Chocolatier.
I haven't tried Dove Chocolate Discoveries yet, but would love to.
Why don't you send me a gift basket or coupons and I'd be more than happy to use the products and blog about them.
(I'm cheap that way.) ;)

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Marilyn said...

Happy birthday to Youngest Hawthorne!