2018 The Year of the Gateau
Follow my journey to create a stunningly delicious cake for each month of 2018. Lets forget our resolutions of eating healthy and exercising, and focus on the true happiness in life...cake.
I present to you all, January
New Year, New Cake. These flavors weren't hard to imagine. Head into any local coffee shop and I'll bet there's a peppermint white chocolate mocha listed on the menu. The flavors just work, simple as that. It's a perfect winter flavor scheme. This cake will refresh your taste buds, and sooth you through the cold January nights. Lets talk formulas and blueprints.
The schematics
You wouldn't build a house without blueprints right? Same goes for cake. Plan it out, imagine what those layers will look like and it'll be easier to execute.
The Cake Layers- For the chocolate cake, I wanted a traditional chocolate cake formula. Hershey's Celebration Cake is just that. This formula was the standby in my house growing up. It's a rich, fudgey dark chocolate flavor, with a moist tender crumb. I would stay away from dark cocoa powders for this recipe, and stick with regular ole dutch process. The extra dark powders will make this too dense. I added a teaspoon of espresso powder to the dry ingredients as well to help boost those bitter chocolatey tones in the cake.
Simple Syrup- If you make a cake, brush simple syrup on the layers. It'll only make the cake better. It increases shelf life and helps keep the cake moist and fresh. I made an espresso simple syrup for this cake. It is supposed to be mocha after all, but I didn't want a huge coffee flavor. I was looking for more of a subtle hint of bitter coffee, that would cut the sweetness of the other components. For those unsure of what simple syrup is, it's equal parts sugar and water heated just to boiling. You can then add any flavors to it, or just keep plain. You'll normally be left with extra syrup after your cake is made, DO NOT THROW OUT! Simple syrup is great as a coffee sweetener, or for cocktails. Lemon simple syrup is dank in a whiskey ginger.
Filling- I love a cake with three separate main components, cake, buttercream, and filling. For the filling I made a white chocolate mousse. My understanding of a true mousse is when you separate egg yolks and whites. Whip each to stiff peaks with sugar. Add chocolate or flavors to the whipped yolks and then fold the whites in. I know there are recipes that just use whipped cream and flavoring, and that's fine too, but in my opinion not a true mousse. I used a recipe that combined both concepts using whisked eggs yolks and whipped heavy cream, as well as gelatin to stabilize the filling. It's a sweet filling that pairs so nice with the bitter chocolate. It was so light and creamy, but held up well in between cake layers.
Dat Buttercream Tho- Cake is all about the buttercream to me. I'm usually that person at a party scraping the left behind frosting onto my plate, or looking for that lucky edge piece. Oh, you don't want that buttercream rose on your piece? I'll take it, no trouble at all. That being said, I made a peppermint white chocolate swiss meringue buttercream, and it was a thing of beauty. I borrowed a recipe from the Pioneer Woman for the swiss meringue buttercream. In the late stages of beating the frosting I then added 4oz of melted white chocolate, cooled slightly. As well as 1/8th tsp plus two drops of peppermint extract. That stuff is potent folks, go easy or you'll be frosting a cake with toothpaste. The texture of a swiss buttercream is silky smooth and oh so easy to spread, I just love it. I could literally talk about different buttercreams all day long, but I won't go too much into detail this first post. If you're like me about frostings though, don't worry, there WILL be lots more to come.
Decor- I wanted the January cake to be simple, clean, elegant and basic. It was all of those things. No fancy piping, no disgusting fondant, just crisp frosted edges. My bother-in-law cut out a beautiful snowflake stencil for the top. We crushed peppermints up in the food processor until dust like consistency, and gently sifted the dust over the stencil. We then very carefully removed the snowflake and were left with a beautiful peppermint design. I also sprayed the stencil with pan spray first, so the extra dust would stick to it and not immediately fall off when removing. The dust on the cake, reformed into a peppermint crust, I'm assuming by picking up moisture from the frosting, and gave a delightful crunch while cutting into it.
I find myself holding my breath as I cut into the first piece. Will the layers hold up? Will they be even and neat? Did I cut myself a big enough piece? This cake was a huge success! The contrast between the white and black layers matched that of the bitter and sweet mix of flavors. The texture combination of the fudgey cake, creamy mousse, and silky buttercream worked so well together. The cooling hint of peppermint left my mouth refreshed and clean. Its a beautiful and simple cake.
I gave you the recipes, so go forth and eat cake...
Follow my journey to create a stunningly delicious cake for each month of 2018. Lets forget our resolutions of eating healthy and exercising, and focus on the true happiness in life...cake.
I present to you all, January
Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha
New Year, New Cake. These flavors weren't hard to imagine. Head into any local coffee shop and I'll bet there's a peppermint white chocolate mocha listed on the menu. The flavors just work, simple as that. It's a perfect winter flavor scheme. This cake will refresh your taste buds, and sooth you through the cold January nights. Lets talk formulas and blueprints.
The schematics
You wouldn't build a house without blueprints right? Same goes for cake. Plan it out, imagine what those layers will look like and it'll be easier to execute.
The Cake Layers- For the chocolate cake, I wanted a traditional chocolate cake formula. Hershey's Celebration Cake is just that. This formula was the standby in my house growing up. It's a rich, fudgey dark chocolate flavor, with a moist tender crumb. I would stay away from dark cocoa powders for this recipe, and stick with regular ole dutch process. The extra dark powders will make this too dense. I added a teaspoon of espresso powder to the dry ingredients as well to help boost those bitter chocolatey tones in the cake.
Simple Syrup- If you make a cake, brush simple syrup on the layers. It'll only make the cake better. It increases shelf life and helps keep the cake moist and fresh. I made an espresso simple syrup for this cake. It is supposed to be mocha after all, but I didn't want a huge coffee flavor. I was looking for more of a subtle hint of bitter coffee, that would cut the sweetness of the other components. For those unsure of what simple syrup is, it's equal parts sugar and water heated just to boiling. You can then add any flavors to it, or just keep plain. You'll normally be left with extra syrup after your cake is made, DO NOT THROW OUT! Simple syrup is great as a coffee sweetener, or for cocktails. Lemon simple syrup is dank in a whiskey ginger.
Dat Buttercream Tho- Cake is all about the buttercream to me. I'm usually that person at a party scraping the left behind frosting onto my plate, or looking for that lucky edge piece. Oh, you don't want that buttercream rose on your piece? I'll take it, no trouble at all. That being said, I made a peppermint white chocolate swiss meringue buttercream, and it was a thing of beauty. I borrowed a recipe from the Pioneer Woman for the swiss meringue buttercream. In the late stages of beating the frosting I then added 4oz of melted white chocolate, cooled slightly. As well as 1/8th tsp plus two drops of peppermint extract. That stuff is potent folks, go easy or you'll be frosting a cake with toothpaste. The texture of a swiss buttercream is silky smooth and oh so easy to spread, I just love it. I could literally talk about different buttercreams all day long, but I won't go too much into detail this first post. If you're like me about frostings though, don't worry, there WILL be lots more to come.
Decor- I wanted the January cake to be simple, clean, elegant and basic. It was all of those things. No fancy piping, no disgusting fondant, just crisp frosted edges. My bother-in-law cut out a beautiful snowflake stencil for the top. We crushed peppermints up in the food processor until dust like consistency, and gently sifted the dust over the stencil. We then very carefully removed the snowflake and were left with a beautiful peppermint design. I also sprayed the stencil with pan spray first, so the extra dust would stick to it and not immediately fall off when removing. The dust on the cake, reformed into a peppermint crust, I'm assuming by picking up moisture from the frosting, and gave a delightful crunch while cutting into it.
I find myself holding my breath as I cut into the first piece. Will the layers hold up? Will they be even and neat? Did I cut myself a big enough piece? This cake was a huge success! The contrast between the white and black layers matched that of the bitter and sweet mix of flavors. The texture combination of the fudgey cake, creamy mousse, and silky buttercream worked so well together. The cooling hint of peppermint left my mouth refreshed and clean. Its a beautiful and simple cake.
I gave you the recipes, so go forth and eat cake...
"My bother-in-law"
ReplyDeleteFabulous
"My bother-in-law"
ReplyDeleteFabulous