Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Once upon a time, Wendy had a friend, M. that loves bunnies. She had her 18th birthday a few weeks ago in March. Although officially an adult, she still adores bunnies, but Wendy reckons that she loves chocolate more. So Wendy baked her a chocolate birthday cake...with a silly looking bunny piped on top. M. was happy with her belly full of chocolate cake and a devoured bunny. The End.


Sorry for the lame paragraph above. I am now neck deep into revision for final exams (well at least I should be - only 1 month left!), and my head is full of things to do with chemical reactions, biological processes and mathematical equations and surprisingly, not of cakes, cookies and desserts. Not even chocolate, let alone words and inspiration for blogging. As I tweeted a while ago, this "update-once-a-month" habit is not exactly healthy...I promise to make up for it during summer!

But I did bake a chocolate cake with raspberry filling for M.'s 18th, and it was delicious. The chocolate cake layers were not too heavy yet was full of chocolate flavour, and the tangy raspberry filling paired it really well by balancing the sweetness. The smooth and rich dark chocolate ganache frosting rounded each decadent slice of cake off perfectly.


The decoration is a little childish and haphazard...if I had the time I'd probably spend time experimenting with fondant and colours and mould a 3D fondant bunny on a bed of green grass and purple flowers, but the reality is that I had no time and resorted to piping things with a pink-tinted buttercream. Hey, at least the bunny did look like a bunny! :p

My only complaint that the cake layers are very fragile - I mean very fragile...when handling the layers I broke off quite a huge chunk of one layer and had to cement it on the cake using the ganache. Also, when the cake is sliced, there were a lot of loose crumbs (see above photo), so it seemed like we were eating chocolate soil - but scrumptions chocolate soil!


Nevertheless, I love this raspberry-chocolate combination - I can already foresee raspberry ice cream with chocolate chunks, raspberry-chocolate mousse, or raspberry cream cheese muffins with chocolate chunks....mmmmm!


P.S. - Referring my last post, the Matcha Mochi Cakes - as I said I would bake different flavours after my French Orals, and I did! (But totally forgot about posting the variations on) The chocolate and black sesame variations are now on, so if you enjoyed those mochi cakes as much as I did - have an encore with different flavours :)



Chocolate Raspberry Layer Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Printable Version

For me, this made a 9-inch three layer cake

For cake layers
3oz (85g) fine-quality semisweet chocolate such as Callebaut ( I used Varlhona)
1 1/2cups (355ml) hot brewed coffee
2cups (400g) sugar
2 1/2 (313g) cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups (130g) unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup (177ml) vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups (355ml) well-shaken buttermilk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla

For ganache frosting
1/2 pound (227g) fine-quality semisweet chocolate such as Callebaut
1/2 cup (119g) heavy cream
1 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoons light corn syrup (I replaced with golden syrup)
1/4 stick (28g() unsalted butter

For raspberry filling
(I'd probably halve this next time; I had alot left over)
2 10-ounce bag (567g)frozen raspberries, thawed (I used the same amount of raspberry puree as fresh or even frozen raspberries are very expensive here)
1/2 cup (100g) sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Special equipment: two 10- by 2-inch round cake pans (I baked three 9-inch layers)

Make cake layers: Preheat oven to 300°F/150°C. and grease pans. Line bottoms with rounds of wax paper and grease paper.

Finely chop chocolate and in a bowl combine with hot coffee. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.

Into a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat eggs until thickened slightly and lemon colored (about 3 minutes with a standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer). Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined well.

Divide batter between pans and bake in middle of oven until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Cool layers completely in pans on racks. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and invert layers onto racks. Carefully remove wax paper and cool layers completely. Cake layers may be made 1 day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature.

Make frosting: Finely chop chocolate. In a 1 1/2- to 2-quart saucepan bring cream, sugar, and corn syrup to a boil over moderately low heat, whisking until sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from heat and add chocolate, whisking until chocolate is melted. Cut butter into pieces and add to frosting, whisking until smooth.

Transfer frosting to a bowl and cool, stirring occasionally, until spreadable (depending on chocolate used, it may be necessary to chill frosting to spreadable consistency). (Deb says that stirring this over a bowl of ice water does a great job of cooling it off quickly and evenly.)

Make Filling: Puree the raspberries in a food processer, blender or immersion blender. Press the puree through a fine-mesh strainer with the back of a spoon, removing the seeds. Heat the puree in a small pot with the sugar and cornstarch until mixture boils, stirring constantly. As it boils, it should quickly thicken. Let it cool completely.

Assemble: Place one cake layer on serving plate/board. Spread some of the raspberry filling (around 1/2 cup) on one layer. Gently top with another layer, and spread with more filling. (I had alot of filling left over; it can be served with cheesecake or over icecream). Spread the chocolate ganache frosting on top of the cake and sides.

The cake keeps, covered and chilled, for 3 days. Bring cake to room temperature before serving.

My New Favourite Brownie

I think I've found my favourite brownie recipe. It contains no 'chocolate' as such but is made with cocoa powder - but still yielded amazing results! I've been tempted to try this recipe since seeing it on Lemonpi, but held it off until a few days ago, when you know, I missed mixing and weighing ingredients - this baking itch that just had to be scratched. I wanted to bake something that can be done quickly, but also giving satisfying results.

Maybe some may start question - "a good brownie? with no chocolate? Is that possible?!" Well it is indeed! I love this brownie recipe to bits! I hate to admit, but I think that the best brownie texture comes from Betty Crocker's brownie mix - it has the chewy, semi-crispy crust that I associate with perfect brownies - but a) call me a food snob, but I never bake with mixes and b) brownies from box mix have near to no chocolate flavour at all, just a bland crumb coloured brown that is not appealing at all.


But oh my, this brownies hit all the right criteria for the brownie I'm searching for. It has that delicate crust on top, and the crumb is not cakey but not too fudgy and cloying either - it was just...perfect. The chocolate flavour was right there, and I cut down some sugar so the sweetness was just right. I really can't believe that humble cocoa powder can give such great results -another reassurance that I don't need to spend a fortune on good chocolate for good brownies and I don't need to turn to box mix to get that perfect brownie texture! Since they are so easy and take so little time (probably shorter than time spent writing this post) and equipment to make, I'm seriously considering that I bake these once every few weeks to share at school or something - everyone loves brownies and I'm sure it's bound to put a smile on their face if you share!


Regarding printable recipes: it seems that the file is very blurry, but if you click 'Download' or Print' on the top left corner, you can save/pring the actual file which is perfectly readable.


Cocoa Brownies
Adapted from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet, via Smitten Kitchen and Lemonpi
Printable Version

Makes 16 or 25 brownies, depending on size you cut them

10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks, 5 ounces or 141 grams) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (9 7/8 ounces, 280 grams) sugar (I cut this down to 200g – 1 cup/ 7oz)
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 7/8 ounces, 82 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process; I used Valrhona)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, cold
1/2 cup (66 grams, 2 3/8 ounces) all-purpose flour
2/3 cup walnut or pecan pieces (optional)
I also added in around two tablespoons of mini chocolate chips I wanted to use up

1. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C.
2. Line the bottom and sides of an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.
3. Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test.
4. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot. (It will look somewhat gritty or lumpy, it’s fine)
5. Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one.
6. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Stir in the nuts, if using. Spread evenly in the lined pan.
7. Bake until a toothpick plunged into the centre emerges slightly moist with batter, around 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack.
8. Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16 or 25 squares.

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

In the first month of 2010, four of my friends have already turned 18. I made these cupcakes the other day for them, as super belated birthday presents as it was impossible for me to bake during exams.

Coming to think of it, 2010 is going to be a very special - a roller-coaster year for me. I'll be sitting my IB final exams. I'll be graduating from high school, after seven years there. I'm determined to have a crazy, fruitful, fun and full-of-baking summer to make up for last year. I'll be saying farewell to my friends I've known for many, many years, some whom I have been pals with since we were 4 years old, and we will be parting our own ways to enter the next stage of our lives at university. I myself am likely to be going overseas for university, and enter a journey myself into a foreign country which I am very excited for. (Wait - What if there are no kitchens in the residencies, let along an oven? Oh no!)

And finally, of course I'll be turning 18, an adult, too - I wonder if anyone will be there to bake me a cake...

...Back to these cupcakes. Who could resist a light yet chocolatey cupcake rounded off with a swirl of shiny, intensely chocolatey frosting. This is my first time making Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and it was a success! As per usual, I was a little scared to try the recipe before, as it requires whipping for at least 15 minutes and I was afraid that my ageing hand-held mixer might give up on the job. In the end, I had nothing to be afraid of - after 10 minutes of whipping the egg whites with the butter, watching it turn into a slosh, and then voila - clotting into a silky smooth buttercream.


As for the flavour of the buttercream, I was impressed! Unlike classic buttercreams, it was not cloyingly sweet or rich as the bittersweet chocolate alleviated some of the sweetness. It also had lovely light marshmallowy touch to it, and the texture was just a perfect match to the cupcake itself. Not to mention that it pipes like a dream too - even an incompetent cupcake decorator like myself thought that it was very easy to work it. A few friends and I do think that it's still a tad too buttery, so maybe next time I'll cut the butter down.

I used my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe, and once again it did not disappoint. They are really easy to whip up, and even though it only uses cocoa powder, if you use the best-quality cocoa you can get your hands on (I use Valrhona), the end result is still amazingly chocolatey and its light texture means that it's a great compliment to many frostings and fillings.

And on a final note, I've decided to add printable versions (PDF format) of recipes from posts from now on! I will also convert the ingredient measurements into metric measurements (or vice versa if necessary). I personally always work by metric weight, and since I convert the units for every recipe anyway, I might as well post it up too. The online converter I use can be found here - I find it a very handy tool, as it converts measurements specifically for each food. I hope the new feature will be useful to you, and please do notify me if you spot any mistakes - I'll be happy to correct them!

Chocolate Cupcakes
From Cupcake Bakeshop

Printable Version

Makes 12-15 regular cupcakes, or around 40 mini cupcakes

1/2 cup (1 stick, 113g) butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups (200g) sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup (103g) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (43g) unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup (120ml) milk
1 teaspoons vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C).
2. Beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined.
4. Measure the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a small sized bowl and whisk to combine.
5. Measure out the milk and vanilla and stir to combine
6. Sift in about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar and beat to combine. Add about a half of the milk/vanilla and beat to combine. Continue adding, alternating between sifted dry and wet and finishing with the dry.
7. Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 2/3’s full. Do not fill with more than that or cupcakes will overflow. Turn oven down to 350°F (170°C) degrees and bake cupcakes for about 22-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Use Real Butter

Printable Version

Makes enough to generously frost 12 regular cupcakes

4oz (113g) bittersweet chocolate
6.3oz (around 1.5 sticks, 180g) unsalted butter, room temperature [I think I will cut down to 150g next time)
2 egg whites
3 oz (80g) sugar

1. Melt the chopped chocolate over a water bath or in the microwave. Set aside and let cool.
2. Place egg whites and sugar in a heatproof mixing bowl.
3. Set bowl over 1 inch of water in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk gently until mixture reaches 140°F/60°C (or until sugar has dissolved and mixture is no longer grainy when you rub it between your fingers)
4. Remove from heat and using an electric mixer, whisk on medium speed until egg whites are cool to touch (this takes a while – should be cooler than your hand).
5. Continue beating, gradually add soft butter by tablespoon pieces and continue to beat. It will first look watery or separated, but after 10-15 minutes, it will come together.
6. Once desired, pipe-able consistency has been reached, fold in cooled chocolate until well incorporated.

S'mores Brownies

Ok, I really shouldn't be blogging right now - but I miss it too much. I have one more exam, in fact, the hardest one - Chemistry tomorrow, then a TOK presentation (where me and my partner are planning an all nighter for) on Friday...then I'm free!


Meanwhile, take a look at these S'mores Brownies I made with my friends during YTH's birthday party! I've never had a S'more before, but the idea of chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers is very appealing. I think the brownie showcases this flavour combination very well, and they were super easy to make. The digestive biscuits (I've never tried a graham cracker before either, and supermarkets here don't seem to stock them) add a great crunchy texture to the soft brownie and the sticky marshmallow.

Recipe is adapted from Joy The Baker. I kept to all the measurements except that I drastically cut down amount of sugar - I think I used only a quarter to a third of the total amount.

Oh, and since this is the first post in 2010 at My Buttery Fingers, I wish everyone a (very belated) Happy New Year!

Last Minute Christmas Cookies

Actually this post is a little late - I was meant to publish this before I went Christmas carolling, but I couldn't upload my photos and I was running late, so here I am posting this on the early minutes of Christmas Day! But any rate, enjoy these cookies :)
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Following on to my previous post - Yes, I did have time to cram in a few more cookie baking sessions! Since we only have a day or so left until Christmas, I thought I'd summarise the three other cookies I baked for this year's holidays in one, short post.

I think any of these recipes would be perfect as a last minute addition to your cookie can, or to be packed as gifts (I baked the latter two recipes in one morning and they are set to be given off tonight), or just to be bookmarked and made another time next year!

World Peace Cookies


Man, who hasn't heard of these before? A rich, crumbly cookie loaded with dark chocolate bits, everyone is bound to like them. The dough can be stored in the freezer, and baked straight from their frozen state after slicing, so you can enjoy fresh cookies anytime your heart desires this holiday! The recipe can be found on Smitten Kitchen.

Lemon Cranberry Shortbreads


Recently I've learned to like dried cranberries, after eating a bun from a local bakery that had cranberries with linseeds. Anyway, I knew I had to bake these the moment I saw the recipe - I mean, a citrusy, fragrant lemony shortbread - one of my favourite flavours, since it balances the richness of the butter - is bound to appeal, and with my latest favourite food - dried cranberries added? It went straight onto my holiday cookies list. The original recipe asks for the dough to be pressed into a pan, baked and then sliced into bars. I didn't have such a big pan (even if I did it wouldn't fit into my puny oven anyway), so I chilled the dough, rolled it out and cut them into hearts instead.

Chocolate Shortbread Men

This can be said as my substitute for gingerbread men, since I really haven't acquainted a taste for the spiced cookie yet. The shortbread recipe used to make these men have been tried out by me for a billion times - it is definitely fool proof. Only involving four basic ingredients, the dough is very versatile indeed and tastes wonderful. I've included the original recipe below and some of the variations I've tried before.

And lastly, a warm Merry Christmas to you all! Whilst I may be hiding behind my books and revising for my mock exams this holiday, I hope everyone of you will enjoy the holiday with your loved ones!

Lemon Cranberry Shortbreads
Adapted from dandysugar

3 lemons
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) (170g) butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (60g) confectioners’ sugar
2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
1/2 cups (60g) dried cranberries, roughly chopped
1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 300° F (150 C). Line a baking tray with baking paper, set aside.
2. Grate all the zest from the lemons and combine with the granulated sugar in a small bowl. Rub the two together until sugar is moist and fragrant.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars together until creamy. Add flour and mix on low speed until a crumbly dough appears. Add the cranberries and use your hands to form a soft dough. Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour.
4. Roll out the dough tp around 1/2 cm (1/4 inch) thickness. Cut out shapes, transfer onto the lined tray and bake for 10-12 mintues until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack before packing.

Basic Shortbread Recipe
Adapted from BBC Good Food

325g plain flour
200g chilled salted butter
125g/4½oz golden caster sugar
2 tsp good-quality vanilla extract
2 large free range egg yolks

1.Tip the flour into a food processor. Cut the butter into small pieces and drop them into the bowl, then whizz until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, vanilla and egg yolks and whizz to a small dough. Chill the dough for an hour.
For those like me who don't have a food processor:
Put the flour into a large bowl, and cut butter into 1cm cubes. Rub the butter into the flour until incorporated and the mix looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Mix in the sugar, vanilla and egg yolks and use your hands to press everything into a dough. If it is too dry, add a couple drops of water. Chill the dough for an hour (or shape into a log beforehand for slice/bake cookies).
2. Preheat oven to 180 C. Roll out the dough and cut out shapes or slice the dough, arrange on lined cookie sheets. Bake for 15-20minutes until golden brown.

Variations:
Chocolate: Replace 2tbsp of the flour with cocoa powder. Decorate cookies with chocolate chips if desired.
Lemon: Grate in the zest of one lemon into the sugar and rub until moist and fragrant before combining with everything else. Omit the vanilla.
Coffee: Add in 1-2 tsp espresso powder to the dough along with the sugar.
Pinwheel Cookies

Spider Cupcakes

This may be a bit late for Halloween - it's still the 31st here, so maybe just in time! Halloween's not a huge thing here in Hong Kong - I've never even dressed up before for Halloween! Usually my friends and I would go to the annual Halloween Bash at Ocean Park (a theme park), but this year we're just all too busy, so I baked a batch of Spider Cupcakes to mark the occasion.

Of course, the last thing I'd like to dress up as, or see during Halloween are spiders. But I wouldn't mind having a spider morphed from a chocolate cupcake, with a generous slather of chocolate frosting, and sprinkled with more chocolate. I think they look cute, no?

The chocolate cupcake recipe I used was from Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours, and the idea for decorations were from Bakerella. I was a bit disappointed with the cupcake because the crumb was very loose and the chocolate flavour was not deep enough. I defiantly going to stick to my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe in the future. The glaze, however, was nice and hassle-free to make. Made up of simply 3 ingredients - melted chocolate, butter and icing sugar - it tasted wonderful and had a lovely sheen to it.
To transform the cupcakes into scary, chilling arthropods, I used chocolate shavings or Varlhona crunchy pearls as the 'exo-skeleton', strawberry licorice for the legs and M&Ms for the eyes. I know that the heart-studded cupcake liners are hardly Halloween-ish, but that's all I had at home!

So after the transformation, I preserved them in a box in the fridge over night, and bought them to school for my friends to catch and devour. (In fact, some of my friends actually ate REAL spiders in Cambodia during Challenge Week! Cool, right?)

And finally as a Biology student, I do actually know that spiders have 8 legs (...but not without asking a friend first!), but I couldn't fit on 4 pairs - so theoretically all my spiders were disabled spiders!

I'm amazed by some of the Halloween creations other food bloggers have created. Here are some of my favourites: Brain Clot Cupcakes from Annie's Eats, Sugar Cookies from Sweetopia and Coffin Cookeis from Bake at 350. I'd love to try out some of those next year!

Here's me being a 'ghost', taken by myself using the self timer on my camera. If you're out for Halloween, it'd be something fun to do! Check out Photojojo for the tutorial. Aaand, Happy Halloween to you all!

(I'm not writing this post at home, so I do not have the cookbook with me - I'll update the recipe later. If you would like to see my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe, see my old post.)

Black and White Chocolate Birthday Cake

What's a birthday without a cake, right? Usually, if time permits, I'd try my best to bake cakes or other treats for my friends when their birthday comes. Hmm, let's count. The last one was a chocolate chiffon cake. Then it was a chocolate cheesecake. Oh, and the chocolate espresso mousse cake. Two of those, in fact. Chocolate cupcakes, chocolate tarts...Can we sense a theme here? :D

But for A., whom this cake was for, of course it had to be chocolate too - only both Black and White chocolate. As this year is the last time I'm going to celebrate my friends' birthdays with them before we go our own ways for uni, I promised myself that I have to bake them each a big, special birthday cake.

But making it special is not as easy as it sounds. This is the first time I've ever made a birthday cake with mulitple layers and fillings and frostings. Heck, I only bought my first offset spatula two days before! Even with my planning beforehand, I still encountered some problems, partly due to my clumsiness but mainly because I've never made such a cake before, I totally did not know what to expect and I panicked alot when...

...I was slicing the cake layers. I held the knife in one hand, and stared at the cake layer that was barely an inch high. How on earth do I slice that in half without accidentally slashing in the wrong direction? I took a deep breath, and gently sawed through the cake later. Phew. Although the layers were not particularly even, at least they held up! As the cake layers are quite soft and fluffy, I quickly stuffed them into the freezer to make sure they didn't snap in half of something. So the first scare was over.

...I frosted the layers. I'm not sure why, but I had a huge problem with the white chocolate whipped cream. See that ugly white layer in the photo above? Yeah, that. It was perfectly fine after I initially whipped it up - it was smooth and just firm enough to spread, but as per the recipe's instructions, I chilled it for around 2 hours. And after that, I took it out. I prodded it through the plastic wrap. The surface was firm. Not good.

It turned out that somehow, the cream had curdled in fridge, and I didn't have a backup plan. So I went ahead and used it for the middle layer, but it just looked too way bad and unappealing to be the frosting. So I sprinted down to the supermarket, grabbed another carton of whipped cream, ran back and whipped up some lightly sweetened cream and used it to frost the cake instead. It took me ages to get the frosting right, as I've never frosted a big cake before and it was hard to get the crumb coat right, to get the top and sides smooth.

But finally, the cake was done. The top was simply decorated with homemade white chocolate curls and some store bought dark chocolate shavings. I quickly photographed it, and went to sleep - tired, yet happy that I found an alternative to the white chocolate cream disaster. But I was anxious too, as I was very very scared that the white chocolate cream I used for the filling would separate over the night, and mess up the whole cake.

But the next night, after our long day of Challenge Week golfing, 9 holes, a barebeque... it was cake time! We took the photos, sang the song, the birthday girl made her wishes...and finally it was time for me to slice and serve the cake. I took a deep breath in my brain, and cut the cake into slices. All was well. I simply cannot describe how relieved I was to see that the slices came out nicely and the white chocolate cream filling was perfectly fine! And it was actually somewhat symmetrical with the layers looking fairly intact!

So everyone had their slice, and everyone said it was goooood. I felt satisfied and bubbly and excited and happy to see that everyone enjoying it, and that my first layered cake was successful, that everything turned out fine eventually albeit the glitches in the process. So I rightfully dug into my slice to taste the fruit of my labour.

Well, since the cake was made with a fluffy buttermilk white cake, a rich dark chocolate pastry cream, real white chocolate cream and well, more sweetened whipped cream (and of course the love and effort I put in too), it was just simply decadent. The smooth creams complemented the cake well, and the sweetness was just right so the flavours of both chocolates came through. In fact, I was glad that I used whipped cream for the frosting, as it helped round all the layers together nicely and so the cake is not too heavy and cloying.

If you're a chocoholic for both chocolates that's looking for a cake to bake, why not this? The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours. The recipe can be found on this site. (Sorry, I'm too tired to type it all up :P In fact, A. was the person who helped me order this book from Amazon, so what's better to bake a cake from that book for her?)

Happy Birthday for the nth time A.! I'm really really glad you liked the cake!

Although layered cakes are probably a no-brainer for practically everyone but me, to myself, it seems like I've reached a mini baking milestone. And honestly? I can't wait to bake the next big-special-birthday cake!

P.S. Actually I had my 17th birthday a few weeks ago too, in case anyone wondered why the 'About Me' section has changed :)