Dark Chocolate, Raspberry Tuxedo Cake - Be Still My Heart

Wooo I'm back y'all! Well kind of. My Mac is still mostly dead* - CPR failed and I'm currently trying to find a Miracle Max to create a chocolate coated pill so it can return to it's true love (me) (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, it will make me very very sad.) (ahem) Speaking of true love, we are swiftly approaching the lovey-est of all Hallmark Holidays**.  Valentines Day! And while I don't 100% buy into the whole creation of a holiday that needs a specific gift, I do adore thematic cooking.  So I'm kind of conflicted.  

Speaking of conflicted... no, not really, I had just kind of babbled my way into a corner and couldn't think of a segue.... let's talk cake!

I made this cake recently for my father's birthday, but the entire time I couldn't help think about how wonderful this cake would be for a nice sophisticated Valentine's Day celebration.  With the moist chocolate cake, rich dark chocolate flour-less cake layer and light, fresh raspberry filling, how could you go wrong? 

Let's get started shall we?

Start by combining the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder.

You could sift the dry ingredients together, or you could whisk them until they are all combined and all the clumps of cocoa powder are broken up.

Set the dry ingredients aside and start working on the wet ingredients.  Add the vegetable oil to the buttermilk, followed by the eggs, vanilla extract and white vinegar.

Whisk the wet ingredients until they are all combined and then pour the wet mixture into the dry.

Mix the batter until it is just barely combined and then divide the batter into two greased and "floured" 9" cake pans.  I opted to use cocoa powder to coat the pans because the cake is chocolate, but it really doesn't make much of a difference.

Put the pans in the oven for 25 -30 minutes at 350 degrees.  You really want to watch these since chocolate cake can burn pretty easily and dry out.  And nobody wants dry cake do you? No! So I'd say start checking on them around 20 minutes and if you pull the toothpick out and it is just a little covered with crumbs, err on the side of being slightly under cooked vs. over cooked and dry.

While the cakes are in the oven, I started working on the flour-less chocolate cake layer.  I'm going to be honest with you, I love brownies, and flour-less chocolate cake is really just a really dense, large, brownie.  My family went on a cruise for New Years and one day at the lunch buffet they had flour-less chocolate cake.  I about died.  I may have skipped lunch and just had the cake.  And since I'm being honest, I feel compelled to admit I may have had seconds.  And thirds.  It was during this final tasting that my sister Jessi pointed out that I should make a cake that incorporated a flour-less chocolate cake as a layer.  And she was right.  I couldn't stop thinking about the delicious surprise of eating a piece of cake with slice of the flour-less chocolate cake right in there.

And the rest is history!

Start by melting some dark chocolate chips with an equal amount of butter.

Meanwhile, combine sugar and cocoa powder.

Pour the melted chocolate into the sugar/cocoa mixture.

Add in vanilla extract and stir it all to combine and to help cool the chocolate down.

Next crack your eggs directly into the bowl you melted the chocolate in.  This will allow you to mix the eggs with the slightly warm chocolate to help temper them before adding them to the rest of the mixture.

Pour the eggs into the chocolate mixture and stir just until combined.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9" pan.  I was planning on using cocoa powder to coat the pan the way I did with the chocolate cakes - but I ran out.  It ended up just fine since this cake is just going to be a layer in the bigger cake and won't be seen.  If you decide to just make the flour-less cake, definitely use the cocoa powder so that your beautiful dark chocolate cake won't be coated in white.

Bake this for 30 minutes in a 300 degree oven.

All right, we're getting close.  You want all the cake layers to be fully cooled before you continue.  In fact, I typically put my cake layers in the freezer before stacking so that they don't get as crumbly.  While everything is chilling, go ahead and pull a block of cream cheese out of the fridge.  We need it to be room temperature to make the raspberry filling.

When you are ready to assemble all your layers, it is time to make the raspberry mousse. 

Begin by creaming the room temperature cream cheese. When the cream cheese is good and smooth, add in the seedless raspberry jam and mix again on medium until they are combined, smooth and glossy. Finally fold in the cool whip a little bit at a time until it is all combined.

Lovely.  Again, this alone is divine.  I can imagine serving this in a nice martini glass with some dark chocolate shavings on top.  Yum.  Or, oooh! In a dark chocolate candy shell! Can you tell I love the combination of raspberry and dark chocolate?

So let's stack this bad boy.

Start with your chocolate cake, flat side down.  Pipe on an even layer of raspberry mousse.  Next add on the flour-less chocolate cake layer.  Add another layer of the mousse and top that with the final cake layer with the flat side up.  I then took the rest of the mousse and did a quick crumb coat.

While this bad boy spends some time in the freezer firming up, I got to work making my favorite cooked frosting and sorting out my decorations.  I recently discovered these amazing little treats.  Dark chocolate covered acai berries and I knew they'd be the perfect accent border at the bottom of my cake.  And with the heart healthy dark chocolate and the antioxident rich acai, they are practically health food.  Almost.  Maybe? Ok fine! They aren't.  But I'm going to keep telling myself they are.

Half way through the chilling process, I checked on my cake and discovered it lilting a bit.  Imagine my horror.  Apparently the flour-less cake layer was too heavy for the mousse.  So I also inserted a border of dark chocolate covered acai berries to each of the mousse layers for support.  Pretend there  is a picture of that here.

When the frosting is made, and the cake is chilled, go ahead and frost the cake.  You don't have to worry about getting the frosting impeccably smooth because of what is about to happen.

Melt together a cup of dark chocolate chips and about 1/2 cup of milk.  Meanwhile, place the berries in a nice border around the bottom of the cake.  I went through and selected all the smaller flat berries so they would be a consistent size.

By the time you finish the border, you chocolate ganache should be done.  And then you're going to do this.

Oh dear me.  There is nothing finer than seeing molten chocolate drizzle onto a cake and ooze down the sides.  Amazing.  The drips will stop on their own as the chocolate cools.  And voila! A delicious, rich cake that looks just as good as it tastes.

As I mentioned a few thousand words ago, I made this cake for my dad's birthday so the black and white style of a tuxedo cake was just perfect for a manly birthday.  But if I were making this for Valentine's Day, I would totally tint the cooked frosting a nice pink.  Or you could even do something like this:

Yes, I made a couple of cupcakes out of the chocolate batter when I was baking the cakes and then filled them with the raspberry mousse. Why do you ask? To top the cupcakes, I dipped them into the dark chocolate ganache and then dragged a toothpick through a little drop of white chocolate ganache before it sets  for a super cute Valentine's Day treat.

Shopping List for Chocolate Cake

• 2 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
• 2 Cups Sugar
• 4 Tbsps Cocoa Powder
• 1 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 1 Cup Buttermilk
• 1 Cup Vegetable Oil
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 Tbsp Vinegar

Shopping List for Flour-less Dark Chocolate Cake

• 1/2 Cup Dark Chocolate Morsels
• 1/2 Cup Butter
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Cocoa
• 3 Eggs
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Shopping List for Raspberry Mousse

• 8oz Cream Cheese
• 1/2 Cup Seedless Raspberry Jam
• 16oz Whipped Topping

Shopping List for Cooked Frosting

• 5 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
• 1 Cup Milk
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 Cup Butter
• 1 Cup Sugar (granulated not powdered)

Shopping List for Chocolate Ganache

• 1 Cup Dark Chocolate Morsels
• 1/2 Cup Milk
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• Pinch of Salt

Enjoy!

* No Mac means picture quality is straight from my camera with no editing at all and while I like the idea of a cinema verites style kitchen where you can see everything true to form, I also am not using the BEST of equipment.  I love my point and shoot camera for visiting Disney World and taking pictures of my dogs sleeping on the couch, but it isn't always the best for kitchen shots. So sorry in advance.  


** I don't mean to sound like a bitter spinster but really I would much prefer for Hubby to bring me flowers on a random Thursday (as he did last night) rather than dutifully paying extra for the same flowers on a specific day because he's being told to.  

Tastes like Christmas

There are just some flavor profiles that instantly woosh you back to a moment in history.  For example, every time I smell nutmeg, I think of my grandmother's tortellini soup. Or whenever I taste melted cheddar cheese, I think back to after school snacks made by my little sister.  A few years ago, I found myself seeking out a little piece of Christmas and I couldn't shake this craving I was having for these little candies my grandmother used to make every Christmas.  They were what our family put out for Santa instead of cookies.

The funny thing is, I hated these chocolates growing up.  There were just too many conflicting flavors for my 11 year old palate.  But I decided to give it a go.  After a quick consultation with my cousin Sara to help jog my memory about what was exactly in these bad boys, I was ready to go.  And the result was a huge success!  I have now made these for Christmas and even Easter for the past few years and every time, they are met with oohs and ahhs.  So let's make them, shall we?

Start by melting 2 cups of semi-sweet morsels in a double boiler.  Or in my case, a glass bowl set over a pot of simmering water.  Typically, I use the microwave to melt chocolate.  But in this case, the quantity of chocolate and the size of the bowl dictates that I use the boiler method.  It also helps to temper the chocolate so that it is shiny and doesn't melt too easily.

While the chocolate morsels melt, chop up another cup of almond bark or dark chocolate bar or candy melts.  Basically you want something that has already been tempered since the morsels are designed to melt and you don't want these candies to melt that easily once they are done because they'd be a big mess.

Once the morsels are melted, remove the bowl from the heat, add the chopped bark and stir until all melted.  This will temper the chocolate to give it a good snap.

Meanwhile, measure out 1 cup of raisins and 1 cup of crushed walnuts.  No no, stay with me here.  I know a lot of people don't like raisins.  But you guys, they are so good in this mixture.  I have known several people who initially turned down a candy because they didn't like nuts or raisins and then finally decided to try one and went crazy over them.

Add the raisins and walnuts to the melted chocolate and stir to incorporate them fully.

Next measure out about a cup of mini marshmallows

Add them to the chocolate, walnut, raisin mix and fully coat with chocolate.  Don't worry about melting the marshmallows, the addition of the bark, raisins and walnuts should have brought the temperature of the chocolate down enough that it won't melt the marshmallows.

Working quickly, spoon out small clumpfulls of the mixture onto a parchment lined baking sheet.

I've tried putting these in a mold or making them like bark, but part of their charm is the organic pieces you get by just spooning them out.

Put them in the refrigerator for at least an hour.  Pack them up in a cute tin and these make a great little holiday gift for coworkers or friends.

Ooops, I couldn't resist taking a sample.  Trust me, you won't be able to either.  All those yummy walnuts and raisins and marshmallows.  No bite is the same.

Now that these are done, I'm officially full of Christmas Spirit!

Shopping List for Melly's Christmas Chocolates - Makes about 30 chocolates

• 2 Cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 1 Cup Chopped Almond Bark, Dark Chocolate Bar or Dark Chocolate Candy Melts
• 1 Cup Crushed Walnuts
• 1 Cup Raisins
• 1 Cup Mini Marshmallows

Mason Jar Cakes

Every year my whole family gets together in August for a picnic to celebrate my grandmother's birthday.  This year, my aunt sent out an email list of all the food items for everyone to volunteer something.  I of course jumped on dessert.  But then I started to panic.  I'd be driving the 6 hours to the picnic that morning, it was outdoors, and there are 20 of us who all have varying tastes in desserts. What was I going to do?

And then I remembered these little cuties from Amanda at Iambaker.  I could get away with making a single cake batter but provide lots of options for our clan, they'd be great little travelers and their lids and mason jar houses would make them perfect for a picnic environment.

To start I had to decide on what varieties I'd create.  To do this I held a focus group with my crack team of analysts.  (Read: I had a couple IM conversations with my friend Jen and two of my cousins.)  Together we settled on the following cake combinations:

1. Birthday Cake
2. Strawberry Shortcake
3. Raspberry Lemoncake
4. Chocolate Chip Sundae
5. Death by Chocolate

For each cake, I started with my favorite yellow cake and my favorite cooked frosting from Tasty Kitchen and made the following alterations.  With the exception of the strawberry shortcake, I added 1/2 cup of batter to each greased mason jar.  I baked them at 325 for 35-45 minutes.  I found testing the done-ness to be a little hard since I couldn't reach the cake with a toothpick.  I'd recommend using one of those long wooden skewers or just guesstimating based on the way the batter pulls away from the sides of the jar.  40 minutes seemed to be a good average, but I was very worried about the strawberry shortcakes since they had less batter baking and the chocolate cake since I couldn't tell if it was burning from the color.

For this batch, I used a pint size wide mouth mason jar.  But for future iterations, I plan on using the 8oz size.  The pint was a little too big and made it hard to get a perfect bite of frosting and cake. It easily was enough for two people to share. 

Birthday Cake

This was the simplest cake of the bunch since I used unaltered yellow cake batter.  Once the baking was complete and it had fully cooled, I topped it with chocolate icing and sprinkles. 

To make the chocolate icing, I started with 1 stick of butter and two heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder.  Beware, this will make a mess.  Even using my largest mixing bowl, the cocoa still puffed up and settled on every surface, including my cheeks.  I blame my hand mixer for not having a slow setting.  But you may want to mash the butter into the cocoa with a fork to start.

Once the butter and cocoa powder have combined, add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of milk and mix again.

Now alternately add 2 cups of powdered sugar and 2 more tablespoons of milk, mixing until incorporated each time. 

Once the icing is complete, I piped it into the jar using a large star tip and added sprinkles. 

Strawberry Shortcake

For these, I used only a 1/4 cup of yellow cake batter poured into a greased mason jar to start since I'd be layering more cake on top of it.

While it was cooling, I assembled my toppings: Diced strawberries, plain cooked frosting and some yellow cake cupcakes from my freezer I had leftover from last week's birthday bakingpalooza.  If you don't have any leftover cupcakes in your freezer, you could just spoon 1/4 cup of the batter you just made into a lined cupcake tin, bake for 20 minutes and let cool with the jar cakes. 

Once the cake jar cooled, I added a layer of frosting and then about 1/2 a cup of strawberries.  I topped these with the cut up pieces of cupcake (the pint size jar was too wide for just a cupcake top, so I cut up the bottoms of the cupcake to make sure you could see the top cake layer from the outside of the jar.  When I do these again in the 8oz jar, I will probably just use the cupcake top).  Finally I topped this with a little more frosting and then a sliced strawberry. 

Raspberry Lemonade

This cake required alterations to both the batter and the frosting. 

I started out by separating 2 cups of batter into a mixing bowl.  I then added the zest of 2 lemons and 2 teaspoons of lemon extract.  You don't want to add the juice of the lemons because the acidity will activate the baking powder (or soda... I always get them mixed up) and change the way the cake rises. 

For the frosting, I added 1/2 a cup of fresh raspberries to 2 cups of the cooked frosting and whipped them together for about 30 seconds.  You want to make sure you don't over whip the frosting because it can separate, but you want to make sure the raspberries are fully mixed in. 

Once the cake was fully cooled, I piped in the raspberry frosting with a star tip and topped it with a single raspberry. 

Chocolate Chip Sundae

This was the one I was looking most forward to.  My favorite treat is a chocolate chip cookie sundae.  With whipped cream or ice cream on top of a chewy, warm, chocolate chip cookie. 

Once they were cooled, I topped them with a bit of the plain cooked frosting, a drizzle of the chocolate ganache I had made for the Death by Chocolate cake and some chocolate morsels. 

Death by Chocolate

I wasn't originally going to make a chocolate cake out of these since I didn't know how the chocolate would be added to the yellow cake batter and I didn't want to make a 2nd batter.  But my mother asked me to please try since she really wanted something nice a chocolatey to end the meal.  So in her honor I decided Death By Chocolate... make it two* was in order.

*Does anyone else remember that commercial.  You hear a woman ordering her meal of garden salad with dressing on the side, grilled chicken and steamed broccoli with no butter, and for dessert: Death by Chocolate make it two.  I have no idea what that commercial was for, but I still to this day quote it whenever I feel like I can treat myself to a particularly decadent dessert because I had eaten well all day.

Anyways, I digress. 

So I decided if I was going to do a chocolate cake, it was going to be one helluva chocolate cake.  To my 2 cups of yellow cake batter, I added 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder. 

While that was baking and cooling I went to work on my filling and topping for this cake:

Chocolate Ganache

3/4 cup of light cream

2 Tbsp of butter

1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate morsels

In a small saucepan, heat the cream and butter until the butter melts and the mixture is steaming.  Don't let it boil.  Remove it from the heat and add in the chocolate chips.  Stir until the chocolate is completely melted and mixed together.  Let it cool.  I then added it to a squeeze bottle and put it in the fridge.  This recipe (and the drizzle on the chocolate chip cake) didn't use the entire bottle so it is still in my fridge, waiting for the perfect opportunity to be drizzle over something else. 

Chocolate Mousse

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1/3 cup skim milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup heavy whipping cream

Start by putting a metal mixing bowl and your beater(s) in the freezer.  In a small microwave safe bowl, combine the chocolate, milk and vanilla.  Microwave for 30 seconds - 1 minute until the chocolate is all melted.  Stir the mixture well to combine and set it aside to cool.  Stir it occasionally to make sure a film doesn't form on top. Once the chocolate mixture is fully cooled, remove your metal bowl and beaters from the freezer and whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form.  Add the chocolate to the cream by gently folding it in batches.  You don't want the cream to deflate by stirring it quickly. 

To assemble, take the fully cooled chocolate cake, and core out the center with an apple corer.  If you don't have an apple corer, you could use a paring knife.  

Into the center, pour the chocolate ganache until it reaches the top.  By the time you have finished pouring into all the centers, you will notice the first ones have sunk down a bit as the ganache absorbs into the cake.  Just top them off before adding the mousse.  

Next, pipe the mousse on top with your large round tip.  By pressing on the bag hard, the mousse will come out big and fluffy.  Finally I topped the mouse with some dark chocolate shavings. 

I added labels to each jar so that people would know what each one contained.  I don't know that I would do the labels the same way next time.  I really liked being able to see the layers of each cake through the glass, and the labels hindered that.  Maybe next time I'll create labels to be tied around the neck of the jar instead. 

When it came time for cake at the birthday picnic, I put a candle into the birthday cake one (of course) and we sung happy birthday using that.  The rest of the jars were set out on the table for people to select their own.  Judging by the left overs, the chocolate chip sundae was the clear favorite with the strawberry shortcake a close second. 

Any way you slice it, I would call these little mason jar cakes, a clear winner.