Caaaake!

Yes, if you noticed in the previous post, I mentioned the “c-word”. Cake. Delicious, delicious cake. By the way – the ice cream sandwiches? Other than for a bit of freezer burn, not bad! I used the Tovolo ice cream sandwich maker gadget, which worked out pretty well. It’s a little complicated to explain – so maybe next time I will photo-document to explain how it worked.

So yes, I had some cake tops (levelled off cake….’tops’) leftover from a project I had last week – my very first “paid-for” cake! Granted, it was for a co-worker’s birthday – but it was my first paid-for cake! That wasn’t paid for by a relative! Ha!

They didn’t have a specific cake in mind, “something chocolate”, they requested, and of course I obliged. I went with a multi-layered chocolate mousse cake enveloped (rhymes with ‘developed’) in a white chocolate ganache-buttercream frosting (kind of an oxymoron, I know, but I’ll explain later). A pic of the goods, c/o a coworker’s camera (but taken by me):

How many layers would you say that cake is? 3? 5? Does the mousse filling count as a layer? Or simply the sandwich glue that holds it all together? I didn’t tell them, but this cake was booze-heavy! (say it with me “boooooze heavy!”) Kahlua and Frangelico in the mousse and Amaretto keeping the cake layers nice and moist. Trust me, it makes a difference.

The only specific instruction I received was to keep the top white. I’m not the best at cake decorating, so I opted to do an all-white frost and let them decorate the rest. Oh, did I mention that this was for the Art Team? Ha ha – I knew they would appreciate a little more white space. I found a recipe for white chocolate ganache, but once I made it…it didn’t really coat as nicely as hoped. I did halve the recipe – but still, the chocolate cake was so dark, the effect wasn’t great. I decided do mix things up by integrating it into a moderated buttercream (butter, cream, icing sugar) and it was really, really good. Really creamy, perfect amount of sweetness and went on like a dream. I’m going to try and duplicate it in the future!

(a snippet of their fantastic decorating! I missed the candles and cutting, but managed to secure myself a slice 🙂

So there ends another week. And next week – another cake. I have something quite unique up my sleeve…or rather, my apron. Which would mean, I have something quite unique under my skirt? ;P