Triple Decker Strawberry Cake

When I started I said I was going to make these exactley as the recipe appears in the book - but I made two little changes to this one - the Triple-Decker Strawberry Cake - page 67.  As the name implies, the recipes calls for a three layer cake - but I have just two nice cake pans (and they are nice - I'll explain more later).  So, I decided to make it as two layers, then cut those two in half, resulting in a four layer cake.  That was change number 1.    Number 2 was in making a 1 and 1/2 recipe batch of the frosting to insure I had enough to spread across the extra layer.  The end result is a sweeter version with all that additional frosting. 

The biggest seal of approval I can give is that my hubby said "this is really good." This coming from a man who thinks if it aint got chocolate, it aint dessert.  But that isn't really a big surprise considering the extra frositng - his remark considering my selection of a bundt cake as my first cake was - why not a layer cake?  A layer cake having more frosting.

This is another super moist cake - the fresh strawberries gave it a wonderful taste - but the jello added a bit of an artificial taste as well.  Yes, I believe I could taste both the fresh strawberries and the artificial strawberry jello taste.  Perhpas what I was actually noticing was the fresh strawberries in the frosting.  The frosting was very good - though I personally prefer a lesser amount of frosting.  Hubby and I are polar opposites on this point - he thinks of the cake as being a side bar - something to hold the frosting for his consumption.  I often will eat the cake between the layers of frosting leaving most the frosting behind - so frosting has to be pretty special to catch my attention. 

I said I would say a word about my cake pans -- first, I have a small kitchen and there isn't much storage room, so I don't keep a very wide variety of pans.  Have you ever struggled with the layer cakes that dome up in the center so when you try to frost and stake them, they seem to wobble or look nothing like the cook book picture?  When I was growing up a neighbor decorated cakes as a living and she gave me a tip to handle this.  The issue is with the outer edges of the cake cooking too fast, not giving it time to rise, while the middle cooks at a more appropriate speed - the result is that doming affect.  She would tear towels into narrow strips - wet them and tie them on the outside of the pans.  This slowed the cooking of the edges and allowed the cake to cook more evenly.  I successfully used this technique for many years.  A couple of years ago I purchased two 9 inch Wilton round cake pans - they have a double wall design that acts in the same manner - the layers come out much more even.   So - there you are - two viable tips for nice level cake layers.....

"Mom's Layer cake....."

Page 106 - "Mom's Layer Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Frosting"  is cake #2 - and in my opinion it is the frosting that makes this cake.  But then I have never been a huge fan of white cake - too plain.  If you are a fan of white cake, you will no doubt love this one - the texture is incredibly fine - while not exceptionally moist, it is not at all dry either - just very nice.  And the added vanilla extract does give it a better overall taste compared to the normal white cake that I have had in the past that always failed to impress me.  In addition to the extra vanilla extract, in place of the oil generally called for in box car mixes, this recipes instructs to add melted butter - I did use real butter and not margarine.  And whole milk is specified (at the beginning of the book we learn we can use any kind of milk unless the recipe specifically instructs to use a particular type of milk - in this case - whole milk.)

But the frosting - oh the frosting.  I never understood the fondness to homemade "buttercream frosting".  Quite frankly all my previous attempts at homemade frosting fell far short of any ready made frosting I had ever purchased.  But if this recipe for "Fluffy Chocolate Frosting" (page 426) is a "butter cream" frosting or anything like the buttercream frostings I keep hearing being raved about, I certainly understand now.  It was incredibly good - the butter and the cocoa gave the frosting such a rich chocolate flavor that just completed the cake perfectly.

Devilishly Good Chocolate Cake

Full disclosure - the picture is not of my cake.  I guess if I am going to do this right, I better take a picture first, huh?  I found this picture online and it's as close as I could come to looking like my cake.

The "Devilishly Good Chocolate Cake" recipe is on page 202 of the original book (the author has several more books out.)  It starts with a devil's food cake mix and adds unsweetened baking chocolate, pudding, buttermilk and more vanilla and is topped with "Chocolate Pan Frosting" - the recipe found on page 429.

Awesome - I picked a very good one to start with.  The cake was super moist but not "soggy" or underdone.  Just moist!!  And decadently chocolately.  The Chocolate Pan Frosting (unlike what's in the picture) completely covered the outside of the cake and tasted like a layer of home made Christmas fudge had been added to the outside of the cake - rich and delicious.  As I said in my introductory blog, the cake was more than half gone in the hour we were there - I moved the remainder to one of my sister-in-laws plates so I could leave the cake, but take home my cake carrier - all ready for the next cake!

The only "gotcha" I experienced was putting the frosting on the caked - since it is a cooked frosting and you put it on while it's still warm, it's suppose to just kind of be poured on - but work quickly as it "sets" (sort of) as it pours out of the pan.  3/4ths of my cake looked beautiful with the frosting thick but smooth - the other 1/4th I had to kind of spread the frosting on so it looked more like spread frosting, with all the imperfections that includes - still not bad, and no one really  noticed - after all we are pretty much programmed that is how cake frosting looks. 

The Book!

Hubby came up with another winner (we won't discuss the losers) - on a recommendation from someone at work he suggested we purchase a cook book - I LOVE cookbooks - called The Cake Mix Doctor...  (the title actually shows those three dots).  The premise of the book is that with a few additions and modifications to the typical boxed cake mix you can create easy, "from-scratch" taste desserts .  150 "luscious" desserts (mostly cakes- a few bars.)

So, the goal - to bake my way through this book and post the results.  # 1 - Christmas Eve treat I carried in to a family gathering at my Brother/sister-in-laws house.  I am happy to say despite a side board full of desserts, in the roughly one hour we were there (concerned about weather/road conditions or we would have stayed longer) more than half the cake had disappeared, but more on that later.

Out of respect for the author (not to mention to make sure I don't unknownly violate copyright or something) I'll not post recipes here but hopefully you will get an idea or two anyway.  Or maybe buy the book, though my purpose isn't commercial - I have no connection what so ever.