Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

Josh asked for a Red Wings cake for his birthday. Hmmm..... I got to thinking, and really, I didn't want to make this too complicated. I settled on just putting the winged wheel on top of a layer cake - which was tricky enough. To do this, I printed out a copy of the logo, and traced the reverse outline with some piping gel. I then flipped this over on the cake the get the outline, and filled in the design freehand. I started with a white background, then filled in the detail with red and outlined the whole design in red. I think I used a #2 tip for the design, and used Wilton buttercream for the red and white icing. I thinned it a bit too much - the red started to bleed a little when it got warm.

As for the cake - Josh loves Reese's, so I knew I wanted to find a chocolate-peanut butter recipe. I settled on this one from Smitten Kitchen, but only used the cake and peanut butter filling parts, since I needed a firmer icing on my cake. I went with my stand-by chocolate frosting to pack in as many calories per slice as possible ;) It was absolutely delicious. Small slices and glass of milk required.

Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Filling
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
I made a 9" double layer cake; serves 12 to 16

For the cake:
2 c. all-purpose flour
2 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch process
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. neutral vegetable oil, such as canola, soybean or vegetable blend
1 c. sour cream
1 1/2 c. water
2 tbsp. distilled white vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of two 9-inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment or waxed paper and butter the paper. (I just buttered and floured the pans.)

2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine them well. Add the oil and sour cream and whisk to blend. (Whisk is an interesting verb here - it is thick at this point!) Gradually beat in the water. Blend in the vinegar and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs and beat until well blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and be sure the batter is well mixed. Divide among the 2 prepared cake pans.

3. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Let cool in the pans for about 20 minutes. Invert onto wire racks, carefully peel off the paper liners, and let cool completely. (These cakes are very, very soft. I found them a lot easier to work with after firming them up in the freezer for 30 minutes. They’ll defrost quickly once assembled. You’ll be glad you did this, trust me.)

For the Peanut Butter Filling:
(Makes about 5 cups - I only made 1/2 this recipe since I only used it as the filling between layers)
10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 c. confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 c. smooth peanut butter, preferably a commercial brand (because oil doesn’t separate out)

4. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Continue to beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended.

For the frosting:
1 recipe Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Frosting, or Frosting of your choice
** For the piping design, I used 1/4 recipe Wilton buttercream icing, thin consistency with a little piping gel mixed in

5. To frost the cake, place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or large serving plate. Spread the Peanut Butter Frosting evenly over the top. Place the second layer on top and frost the top and sides of the cake with the chocolate frosting.

6. Decorate the cake as you wish!REVIEW:
Yes, this cake is rich. Yes, I know this cake is not healthy. It is a special birthday treat. And it was very good. And in some ways I am glad my in-laws didn't take seconds and left Josh and I with plenty of leftovers. Happy 29th Birthday babe! Sorry I ate so much of your cake!

Wilton Course I Final Cake: Strawberry Layer Cake

My final class for the Wilton Course I was this past week. I present to you, my final cake:

It could be worse. My roses are a little limp b/c my icing wasn't quite stiff enough. And there are crumbs all over the cake (which at one point brought tears to my eyes...). And if I showed you a different picture, you would see it is leaning at a similar angle to a certain tower in Pisa. So, I still have some practice to do. BUT regardless of all of that, it tasted WONDERFUL! I got mucho brownie points from the guys at work for bringing this in. And the crumbs didn't seem to bother them one bit.

As for the Wilton class, I highly recommend it. This class went over the basics, but with just a little instruction on technique and some practice under my belt I am a completely different cake decorator. Ha - its easy to go up when you are starting at ground level. Seriously though, its worth it. At some point I may take the second class (flowers and borders), but our waistlines need a break over here.Strawberry Layer Cake
adapted from Good Things Catered

Cake:
2 1/4 c. cake flour* (see substitution below)
3/4 c. strawberry puree, room temperature** (I made my own, see below)
1/4 c. milk , at room temperature
6 large egg whites, room temperature
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 c. sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened (not melted)

* Cake flour is recommend. As a substitute: 1 c. cake flour = 1 c. all-purpose flour minus 2 Tbsp, plus 2 Tbsp cornstarch. So, 2 c. cake flour = 1 3/4 c. ap flour + 1/4 c. cornstarch.
** For the strawberry puree, I blended ~ 24 oz fresh strawberries with 1/4 c. sugar. This made ~2 cups? I used the rest for the filling (below), and still had some leftover. I would use half the amounts if you don't plan to fill the cake.

Filling:
Bring 1 cup of the strawberry puree to a boil in a small saucepan. Wisk in 1 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch and let bubble for about a minute. Remove from heat, sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.

Icing:
1 recipe Wilton buttercream, or a buttercream recipe of your choice

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 8 in pans: line outside with heavy duty foil and spray inside with baking spray with flour. (I used 9 in pans.)
2. In small bowl, combine puree, milk, egg, vanilla and mix with fork until well blended.
In bowl of stand mixer, add sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix to combine.
3. Continue beating at slow speed and add butter. Mix until combined and resembling moist crumbs.
4. Add liquids and beat at medium speed for about 1 minute or until full and evenly combined.
5. Stop mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl and hand beat for 30 more seconds.
6. Divide the batter evenly among the pans and smooth tops. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (time will vary).
7. Let cakes rest in pan for about 10 minutes and turn out onto wire racks. Let cakes cool completely (about 2 hours). (Now, make buttercream while they cool.)
8. When cakes are cooled, level tops. Pipe medium consistency icing 1/4 inch from the edge of one cake. Make this a thick/high line to accommodate the height of your filling.
9. Fill border with thin layer of buttercream. Top with a layer of the strawberry filling. Make this a good sized layer, but don't go any higher than the border you piped or else your top cake will slide around.
10. Top with second cake, top side down. The bottom is the smoothest part and is best to frost this as the top of your cake.
11. Dollop about 3/4 of the buttercream mixture onto the top of the cake and using a spatula, spread icing over the top and down the sides. Use additional frosting to ice the sides and fix any mistakes.
12. Wait until frosting forms a crust to decorate (about 30 minutes). You may need to make an additional recipe of buttercream to decorate with, depending on the design you have in mind.REVIEW:
This cake was SOOOO good. No one seemed to mind it was lopsided except for me. My top layer slid around on the strawberry filling a bit, but I think if I make the buttercream border thicker between layers I won't have that problem next time. Katie (where I got the recipe from) used chocolate buttercream, and I can only imagine that would be great as well.

Wilton Buttercream Icing

There are a few versions of the Wilton recipe out there, but this is the one recommended in my class. I will probably stick with a pretty traditional Wilton recipe for "decorating," but there are plenty of other icing recipes that you could use as the base frosting on your cake. The Wilton recipes are meant to be stiff enough to hold the shape of your piping and decorations without "melting," which is why they don't use straight butter.

Class Buttercream Icing
stiff consistency, yield ~3 cups
source: Wilton Class I Student Guide

1 c. solid white vegetable shortening (For the batch I make as the base frosting on my cake, I use 1/2 c. vegetable shortening and 1/2 c. butter)
1 tsp. flavoring (clear vanilla abstract, or almond or butter abstract will work too)
2 Tbsp. milk or water
1 lb. confectioners' sugar (approx 4 c., sifted is best)
1 Tbsp. meringue powder
a pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS:
1. Cream shortening, flavor, and water.
2. Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all incorporated. Blend an additional minute or so, until creamy.
*To alter to medium consistency, add 1 tsp. water to each cup of stiff consistency icing. To alter to thin consistency, add 2 tsp. water to each cup of stiff consistency icing.
** Chocolate variation: Add 3/4 c. cocoa or three 1 oz. unsweetened choc squares (melted), and an additional 1 to 2 Tbsp. water to recipe. Mix until well blended.

Wilton Cake Decorating Class I; Weeks 1, 2, 3

My first "decorated" cake ever:Not too shabby! It still needs some work, and these flowers were really easy, but I'm pretty pleased. The cake itself didn't turn out quite as well - somehow it was really dense and kind of dry.The recipe I used looked promising, so I'll try it again sometime and post it once I figure out what I did wrong. I used the Wilton frosting recipe, which I will post next, since this was for my cake class.

For those not familiar, the Wilton Method is a way of cake decorating that is popularly taught in many craft stores across the nation. There are a few different classes available, but the first class covers the basics, and a few weeks ago, I enrolled in Class I. The class is supposed to be 2 hours a week for 4 weeks, but since my class is so small (uh, theres 2 of us), we will finish in three classes.

The class itself only cost me $17.50 to take (thanks to a special from the store), but I did spend about $40 in materials for the class (yea 40% off coupons!). I didn't buy the kit recommended for the class, just the pieces my teacher said I would need (since I had some of the stuff on hand already).

In the first week, the teacher went over the basics, and then we practiced everything from the second lesson on the cake she brought instead of baking and bringing our own (you don't actually need anything for the first class). For lessons 3 and 4, I have to bring my own cake and icing (normally you would bring a cake and icing for classes 2, 3, and 4). Next week, which is the final class, we will finish learning the Wilton rose and I will be perfectly prepared to decorate cakes at any chain grocery store bakery! (You know, just in case I get bored with engineering or anything...)