The Baking Bible: Chocolate Cuddle Cake

I mentioned in my Frozen Pecan Tart post that I was sad we were baking a tart, and it came out in the comments that it was because I'd rather bake a cake. I mean, cake is my thing. Hence my name.

So here we are, baking a cake, and I was grumpy about it. Is there no pleasing me?

PS: The cake is really good, so I am not complaining anymore.

December 31, 2014
Name of Cake: New Year's Eve Cake!
Occasion: NYE!
Constituents: 9x3 inch chocolate chiffon cake, sides frosted in midnight ganache and top frosted with caramel whipped cream

PS: the whipped cream is amazing. Just make that, if you don't want to make anything else.

First up, I made some modifications. There is an actual recipe for a ganache to frost the sides of this cake, but I decided I wasn't in the mood to make ganache. I defrosted some Midnight Ganache and YOU GUYS, I had almost forgotten how much I love Midnight Ganache. It really is the chocolate frosting of my dreams.

Also, I decided I wasn't in the mood to stabilize the whipped cream with gelatin, so I skipped all that bit. I was worried the resulting whipped cream would water out on me, but it never did. So I shrug my shoulders, and may never stabilize this whipped cream in the future.

Also, I have a 9 inch springform pan that I have been wanting to replace for years, and this recipe has finally made me do it for reals. My springform is only 2.5 inches high on the inside due to the way the bottom part of the pan fits inside the sides, which means for this recipe it wouldn't hold all the batter. Also, the pan is dark colored so the oven needs to be turned down 25 degreees to prevent overbaking. Which I always forget to do. Including this time. The cake sunk towards the end of the minimum bake time, and as Rose warns not to disturb the cake until the minimum bake time has passed, I just sat there watching my cake sink lower than the sides of the pan as well as in towards itself. Mark tried to find encouraging words about the cake when he saw it. Something about how it looked like a blood cell or a volcano.

However! The cake, despite being a tad bit rubbery due to overbaking, was still really delicious. So we ate it happily and with gusto. It was New Year's day, after all.

So on to the process pictures.

Whenever a recipe calls for blooming the cocoa powder in boiling water I do it in a jam jar. Instead of whisking, I screw the lid on tightly and shake like crazy. This time I forgot I was going to be adding oil and egg yolks to the mix (once the cocoa paste cooled) so the jar I chose was too small. More dirty dishes.

Egg yolks and vanilla. I think I needed one more egg yolk than the minimum called for to get the proper weight.

Egg whites for the meringue. I think I had one egg white too many, as usual.

Here are the two components of the chiffon cake, about to be folded together. Meringue and yolks/cocoa paste/flour. I find the best tool for the job of folding in whites to be the whisk attachment from the KitchenAid.

Batter in the prepared pan, with the rose nail sticking out the center. This is how Rose figured out how to bake a chiffon cake as a layer cake.

Since my pan wasn't tall enough I only poured in enough batter to fill the pan half full, like the recipe says. The rest of the batter I baked in two little cake pans I have.

Here is the baked chiffon cake, suspended upside down on a cooling rack. This kind of made me nervous since the last time I tried anything like this back in the Heavenly Cakes days it was a total mess.

The two cakelettes, looking a bit shaggy since I didn't grease the pans they were in.

These guys were totally overbaked because I baked them in the oven with the main cake, forgetting the oven door couldn't be opened until the minimum bake time was done. They were dry. But a liberal coating of caramel whipped cream made it so you could almost forget they were dry. We ate the little tube pan shaped cakelette around midnight then went to bed. Happy New Year!

So that Caramel Whipped Cream. I didn't take any decent photos of the making of it, but let me try to explain why it is so damn good. First you make a caramel. You only need 1/2 a cup so if there's extra, save it for a rainy day. I had maybe a spoonful extra and I saved it for a few minutes later when it was cool enough to eat. To this caramel you add some cocoa powder and cream. This made the caramel taste suspiciously like an Oreo cookie, which I would like to investigate further. Then you whip up the cream and sugar (if you follow the recipe there's a gelatin to be made, but as I said earlier I skipped that whole shenanigan) and whisk in the caramel and voila! Some of the most delicious stuff ever is now in a bowl right in front of you.

The next morning. So much sunshine!

And here you can see how my cuddle cake sunk. Less of a cuddle and more of a huddle, har har!

Happy 2015! This will be my TENTH year blogging! Wishing you all lots of cuddles and chocolate in the coming year.