Thursday, July 14, 2011

Wedding and a Cake

The lovely couple
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of going to a friend's beautiful wedding. Here are some photos of the wedding, and a recipe for a 'celebratory cake' (this cake should definitely only be used in celebration, as it is armed with dangerous amounts of butter . . . I could have eaten the whole thing in one sitting).
Not my hand
I mildly adjusted Ina Garten's chocolate cake recipe and came up with the following:
Sift 1 3/4 cup flour with 2 cups sugar, 3/4 cup good cocoa powder, 2 tsp baking soda and 1 tsp each of salt and baking powder. In a separate bowl combine 1 cup buttermilk, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 2 eggs and 1 tbsp of vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, stir to combine and to finish the batter add in 1 cup room temp coffee. Butter and flour two cake pans. Pour the batter in and bake at 350 degrees for just over 1/2 hour (do the toothpick trick to make sure they are done).
Heirloom Tomato Salad with Burrata from Paula LeDuc Fine Catering






For the pièce de résistance - the chocolate buttercream - you really need to block out all health consciousness or thoughts of moderation and forge ahead. I will say that, for the butter cream, you need to have soft butter (especially when doing this by hand). Of course, I forgot to take the butter out.  Not to worry,  I knew I could just slyly microwave it for a few seconds . . . a few seconds later I found that I had a microwave full of melted butter. After scooping up what I could I attempted to let the melty butter cool and re-solidify – fabulous idea. Long story short I got out two new sticks of butter and let them sit out and warm up, au naturale. 










To make the butter cream, melt 6-8 ounces good chocolate (I used bittersweet). While the chocolate is melting beat the two sticks of butter until they are "light yellow and fluffy" – I did it until my hand gave out and it looked a smidgen fluffy. Add in 1 egg yolk and 2 tsp vanilla extract and continue to beat for a few more minutes. Slowly add 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar. To finish add in the melted chocolate and put in a few tablespoons of coffee. Your butter cream is complete. To finish I frosted the cake and then sprinkled the frosting with some nice sea salt which gave the cake a really nice savory end and the tiniest crunch.


1 comment:

  1. Gorgeous photos! Wow of a wedding dress. Amazing sounding recipe. Hi, B's arm! And now, a guest commenter:

    Dear Zoe,
    I don't understand why you so often call out my negative side. We all have our good and our bad points, and while some people choose to blame me for so many of their own problems, I am all natural and older than your ancestors. I've always been here for you, and see that I do help you often. I just feel like, you know, if you're going to ask for my help, I'm happy to be there for you, but please, we could live in better harmony if you could just happily appreciate my good side and try to overlook my bad. I mean, I don't get upset with you for never gaining an ounce after sitting down and eating an entire cake I've helped you bake, now, do I?
    With love and hopes we can continue to live together in delicious harmony,
    Your friend,
    Butter

    ReplyDelete