Monday 20 July 2015

Chocolate Cake with Bavarian Cream Filling

Hubby's birthday meant the ban on desserts was lifted.  I had fun searching about and landed on a great cake for him but of course, it had one requirement all the while - it had to be chocolate.
Just to make it a little more special I made it with a Bavarian Cream Filling.  I've made various flavoured Bavarian creams over the years, usually served with fresh fruit. It was always one of my mother's favourites to make for company instead of just plain custard; she always loved an excuse to buy strawberries in winter. 
But here is the photo of the finished cake and two healthy portions served up.



The filling worked out well but the choice for the icing was not so great.  I decided to make Seven Minute Frosting which makes a marshmallow/meringue like icing.  What I didn't consider was the humidity on Sunday.  Through the roof.  While this beat up into a nice fluffy mixture in the double boiler, it never did achieve the firm glossy texture I love in a Seven Minute Frosting. You can see in the photo that the sides sagged just a tad but it tasted exactly as it should. So a little lesson learned there; humidity does affect egg whites. I must have missed the part where it said "For best meringue results, beat egg whites on a dry, sunny day."



The cake was a recipe I'd never used before but it got a 4.9 rating on over 100 reviews so I figured it must be pretty good. It is a basic cake; the only thing distinctive about this one is it uses buttermilk which deepens the flavour and aids the moistness. It is called The Best Moist Buttermilk Chocolate Cake .
At that web site, besides clearly written instructions with substitution suggestions, you will see a video taking you through the step by step directions for making the cake which is also very helpful. I used dark baking cocoa from Costco and chocolate bits from the  Newfoundland Chocolate Company.
 

The Bavarian Cream Filling recipe was from The Two Chums Blog . They use it in a white layer cake which they ice with buttercream frosting in large rosettes...very impressive. They set theirs in springform pans to have perfect looking layers of cream, a step I obviously skipped. LOL
 In hindsight, I should have stuck with their buttercream frosting too.


I must admit the cream filling was very tasty.  I think I got a bit of a sugar rush from all the tasting.
 Seven Minute Frosting is also a recipe from my mother's day.  She would make this and never complain about the long time spent beating it before electric beaters were around.  And she also seemed to make much more of it than I've ever been able to produce. I think that frosting was what started my love of all things marshmallow.
This Seven Minute Frosting recipe is the one I used this time.

Anyway Hubby enjoyed his roast beef dinner, a glass of Merlot and his cake which he said was "very good".







No comments :