Wednesday 20 February 2008

Chocolate Chocolate Cake



Yet again, Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes take the cake. It was a family birthday, and for special occasions I stick to tried and tested recipes, and since this was pretty much tried and tested, I again went for it. 



I made two round cakes and sliced both into two (three if you count removing the dome) and got a four layered cake, layered with chocolate ganache and nougat. For the nougat I made caramel from two cups of sugar and tossed into it around a cupful of toasted almonds and walnuts. My family loves nougat, whether its with vanilla ice cream (with chocolate sauce if you are feeling particularly indulgent) or just like that, yeah, I mean just popping them into your mouth like popcorn!



Ok, here's an interesting bit. Did you realise you were looking at chocolate ganache of three different colours. Here's how that happened. After I had the cake covered in ganache, I wanted to do to feather icing, so I added some cocoa to the leftover ganache thinking it will get darker in colour, but no! it got lighter. Thinking my eyes were playing tricks, I added some more, and it got still lighter! So then I made the rings with this lighter ganache, and then made the second one with some little-old-much-darker-than-both ganache I had! Am sorry, this all is soo confusing I know!



After making the caramel and before adding the nuts to it, I made some caramel sticks with which I crowned the cake, though I agree it does look like a crown of thorns! Now I feel it really wasn't required and would have looked much prettier on a cake covered with whipped cream. (Try sponge cake with whipped cream and nougat if you havent yet!) For the layers I used the finer nougat and used the bigger pieces to cover the sides. And as always I was behind time so couldn't really wait for the ganache to cool down completely and thicken, therefore the nougat didn't stick properly, creating a ring of yummy debri around the cake!



'Someone's been in my kitchen!', cried the mumma bear. Who could it be, I wonder.



The leftovers. Stuffed. "How ruuude!"

Note: The propotions given on the site are somewhat different from those of the book, and I used the book. 

Wondering what happened to the domes? Three days later they made a very good two layer cake by themselves, covered and sandwiched with leftover ganache and nougat.

7 comments:

aisha said...

oh-my-god! what a cake. looks so super indulgent and yummy! hope the birthday girl liked it! i wish i could get a slice!
that's really interesting about cocoa+ganache! the effect is wonderful in the icing!

Anonymous said...

This looks really decadent! I love how you decorated it.

Cheryl said...

Love the spider web type decorating on the top. It is amazing looking.

Megan said...

I came looking for the DB challange but I like this post!
Great Cake! Do you have the carmael posted? I like the carmel sticks!

Colette said...

WOW! That looks gorgeous! What a beautiful cake...so chocolately...

Anonymous said...

That cake looks beautiful. I was just wondering, have you ever considered using carob in place of chocolate.
I used to avoid carob, but a friend gave me a jar he bought from Holy Food Imports and I find it to be almost as good as chocolate, so much that I use it as a complete substitute.

Unknown said...

hey maureen, actually no, i have never used Carob, I have come across many recipes calling for it, but i havent found Carob here in India yet...