Trial & Error

Like many bakers I'm always on the look out for new recipes to try out, you never know when you'll find that one cake recipe that's better than what you have. So recently I came across 2 new cakes that I just had to try. A youtube friend of mine recently did a video for her favorite chocolate cake that she gets from the Hershey's Dark Cocoa box, when someone divulges such information I never pass it up. Off I went to H.E.B. in search of this stuff because I had to try this out!


Here is what the container looks like for those who want to try this out. Instructions on the back were simple enough, here's a link for the recipe just in case you were wondering...
http://http//www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipes/detail.asp?id=4608&page=2&per=25&classics=1#content_area
For my first run at this I made a simple 8" round. Here are the pictures of how it turned out.

Cakes still in the pans...

Turned out & left to cool...

While the cake cooled I got started on the buttercream. When I went into my fridge where I store all my icing I was shocked to find out that there was nothing in there for me to use...for those who know me I always have some type of icing on hand, not this time. No worries I quickly whipped up some chocolate buttercream to stop off this baby!

Once cooled I filled and iced the cake. Seriously delicious looking and super moist.

Now I know the icing isn't on smooth, that's cause I was going for a more rustic look after all this is just a practice cake. When it was all done I stood back and took a look at it and thought that it needed something else, but what? Chocolate cake, chocolate icing, what else.....ALMONDS! Of course it needed almonds, luckily I had some slivered almonds in the pantry; so I threw some into a small pan so they could toast up.

After a quick toasting I let them cool down and then applied them to the sides of the cake.

This cake is now my go to chocolate cake for sure! It's moist chocolaty, but not so much that it's overwhelmingly chocolate. Loved, loved, LOVED the slight crunch the almonds gave it, next time I will incorporate them in the filling. When it came time to serve this baby up, I accompanied it with some homemade Vanilla Bean ice cream! MMMMMMmmmm!

My next trial recipe was just as successful in taste and flavor, unfortunately I had a little mess up with presentation. Back story....I love anything pineapple! Soda, sherbet, empanadas you name it I love it; especially pineapple upside down cake. As much as I love it I've never tried my hand at making one. Like many weekends in the summer we were having a BBQ so I figured it would be the perfect time to try this out. Like always, I took to the Internet to try and find the perfect recipe or one that seemed perfect enough. As with most of my recipes I found one from Tyler Florence, from the Food Network. It seemed simple enough, and guess what I had everything it called for already at home.

So I called my mom and had her get the butter out for me while I was at work, that way it would be soft enough to cream when I got home. When it comes to new recipes, especially the FN ones, I like to read user comments and everyone seemed to say that when using a 9" pan like it calls for the batter was to much and that it would spill over. This wasn't gonna happen to me, instead of a 9" pan I used a 10" pan that was 3" deep...surely this would solve this problem (side note...it did!). The caramel was easy to make, I almost stuck my finger in to eat it...good thing I didn't cause it was HOT! In making the batter it was easy to put together, I might even start using this for a regular cake batter; I leave that for the next trial test! I set it to bake as directed, but what I didn't account for was since I changed the pan size I also needed to change the baking time. As per the instructions it says to bake for approx. 1 hr, but when I went to check on it 45 min into baking it was already done! Actually it was a bit over done, not enough that the cake was well over baked but the top of the cake was a bit crunchy...doely noted for next time! Here is the cake once it was turned over and in the process of cooling...

You can probably see on the sides some exposed cake, that's due to my second lesson. On the recipe it states to let sit in pan for 1 min. then turn out...well I thought that that would be to little time so I let it sit for little less than 5 minutes, it was closer to 3 1/2. Well as you can probably guess it stuck a bit oops :/
How are we gonna learn huh? If you look at a close up pic it looks flawless...and delicious!

Everyone loved it and didn't even notice my glitches, which was a relief to me. Any way hope you guys enjoyed these updates...TTYL!

Luv,
-Chris-