Monday, January 17, 2011

The week that didn't stop baking....part two


Back to last week's baking frenzy....so last week I posted the Chocolate Chip Cookie Torte, now moving on to Cake Truffles and Fourteen Layer Cake. Yes, that was fourteen

Cake Truffles
Many of you may know them as Cake Balls, but come on,  the word Truffles just gives off this aura of rich, creamy, chocolatey goodness. Balls-not so much. Anyways, for those of you who already know how to make Cake Truffles, bear with me- I have this cool new technique I just learned from ThePioneerWoman. Shall we begin?

Recipe has been removed by author. For more information on this recipe please see ordering information here

Now for the new technique- I saw this on The Pioneer Woman, and I can't believe how nice it turned out. It worked out great because first I dipped about 2/3 of the balls normally in chocolate. At that point, there is always lots of chocolate left in the bowl, but its too goopy to dip in . So then I used her technique, and it worked out perfectly for the last third. 

Moving along....

Fourteen Layer Cake

Its worth it to make this cake, just to drop casually " Oh yeah, last night I made Fourteen Layer Cake." Try it, its fun! Just kidding, it was fun, but its much more than that. This cake exceeded my expectations beyond my wildest dreams. I saw this cake on Bakerella about a year ago, and I was just biding my time, waiting for the perfect oppurtunity to present itself. Well, it did, so I made it! Oh.My.Goodness. This cake had the perfect, moist crumb balanced with a sweet and creamy chocolate glaze. It was heaven. I will be perfectly honest with you- somewhere between the eighth and the fourteenth layer, I was seriously doubting my sanity. But sometimes, losing your sanity is worth it for a cake. And please don't quote me on that. Anyways, I am not going to go through all the steps here- I followed Bakerella's links, and it worked out fine. 

A few notes:
1. Bakerella's chocolate frosting looks delicious, but if you want a  non-dairy recipe, this one is great.

2. Is anyone wondering where to get non-dairy evaporated milk? I was, and I am pretty sure there is no such thing in the stores.  I found a really cool recipe for evaporated milk online, and it really worked: Pour 3 cups soy/rice milk into a small saucepan. Simmer on medium-low for approximately 2 hours, until the milk is half in volume. ( 1 1/2 cups) Refrigerate until use.

3. For some reason, in Bakerella's pictures, she seemed to have much more chocolate to spread on the sides. I didn't have that much on the sides at all, but it was fine because it was all covered with chocolate frosting at the end.



And the inside....
Again.....when you bring a layer cake to a party make sure to bring a normal knife!! Its really too bad, I feel like I am looking a the mangled wreck of my cake. It was really delicious, but much prettier when cut with a normal knife!


12 comments:

  1. I can testify that they looked and tasted delicious!!!! Well, the cake balls were gone before we got there!!

    Also, to all can't stop baking fans--Happy Birthday to the nutty and yummy creater of the blog!!!

    From her biggest fan,
    Well that's in contention, maybe her second biggest.

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  2. Happy Bday, Crazy lady! I am so tempted to make the 14 layer cake...but with the ovens on this side of the ocean, if I start today I might be finished by......Sunday!

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  3. WOWHOWWOOWHOOOWOWO! and....Happy Birthday! YAYYY!!! :)

    love,
    YOur second to biggest fan!

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  4. Thanks everyone! Yael, you crack me up :)

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  5. Happy B-day

    Big D and the Monkeys !!

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  6. wow these cakes are great! dunno which to try first! any tips???

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  7. Hmmm, well the cake truffles are really easy, and come out pretty - even for beginners! And they are delicious too. The others take more time to make, but are really amazing. Have fun!

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  8. the link you give is to a dairy frosting = is that a mistake and you meant to link to a different frosting?

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  9. Hi, its not a mistake- I generally substitute margarine for butter, and soy milk for regular milk and it turns out fine.

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  10. ah...ok my experience is that when the frosting is this type of simple buttercream, just creamed butter and sugar plus flavoring, that margarine is a poor substitute - one usually gets a strong margarine taste since there is so much butter. i'm always disappointed when making an elaborate beautiful cake and then one cuts a slice and eats and it tastes like margarine. maybe this recipe is different, since it calls for so much cocoa flavoring. if i get to it, i will try a small batch.
    i actually saw bakerella's recipe and others for smith island cakes before, and skipped trying it even milchig because i've never seen cholov yisrael evaporated milk! so thanks for the tip on reducing milk or soy milk by half. (Probably one could even do that in the microwave!)

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  11. I know that most recipes use butter, and they recommend not using margarine, but I find I don't have a choice :) I like the way my frosting tastes, but it could just be a matter of opinion.

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  12. i've been googling and see that another way to make evaporated milk is to reconstitute skim milk powder (use 40 to fifty percent of the water you'd normally add) and add butter (because evaporated milk is made from higher fat milk and milk powder is skim milk powder). sweetened condensed milk is evaporated milk plus sweetener. who knew?!

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