Thank you boys for sharing my page. I hope you enjoyed the cake. Better then hostel dessert I hope (:
This cake was a giveaway for whoever shared my post and helped me reach to 500 likes. These hostel boys, Jimmy, Henry, Nic and Thomas. Thank you so much for your help!
This cake is a moist layer chocolate cake with boysenberry compote and mascarpone filling. Hazelnut praline with chocolate ganache, decoarated with dark chocolate spikes and garnished with gold leaf.
The chocolate spikes are 30cm long and the cake is 12cm high. So the chocolate cake is only a third of the height of the chocolate spikes.
This cake seriously is amazing and my brother told me it looked like the world series trophy. This is a baseball trophy. I thought it was quite a good represenation of the trophy, even though that was the first time I had seen it.
The spikes are tempered chocolate spikes. You temper your chocolate so that the spikes don't melt at room temperature. To put it simply tempering your chocolate you put it this way. If your going to build a structure that will be sturdy you will want all the bricks the same size. So they are evenly stacked and fit tightly together. Well cocoa butter's structure is crystalline. There are several shapes and sizes of crystals(bricks)and you want to make them the same size.
Myself holding my creation. Not even scared its going to drop off the side of the balcony.
Lets begin the tutorial..
This is the crumb coat of the cake. A crumb coat is a rough layer of icing that locks in all the crumbs so you can have a clean and crisp exterior of icing.
This is the boysenberry compote and mascapone filling and crumb coat.
This is the ganache frosting that covers the cake and is the base for the sticking of the tempered chocolate spikes.
Break praline and stick the shards of hazelnut praline into the cake. Chop up the remaining praline and crumble it on the top of the cake. Stick on the tempered chocolate spikes. Granish alternative spikes with edible gold leaf.
This recipe honestly is so delicious. If you make this cake you must pair it with chocolate ganache frosting.
Recipe:
Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
1 cup strong hot coffee (cold) 1 cup buttermilk 1/2 cup oil 2 eggs 1 3/4 cups flour 2 cups Chelsea White Sugar 3/4 cup cocoa 2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1 tsp Vanilla essence
Frosting
250ml cream
250g chocolate (dark ghana Whittaker's 72%)
Method
-Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
-In a bowl combine the buttermilk, oil and eggs and vanille and mix till well combined.
-In a seperate bowl combine sifted flour, white sugae, salt, baking powder, baking soda.
-Gradually incoperate the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combinded and no lumps remain.
-Add cold coffee liquid to the batter and mix until its well distrubuted.
-Line 2x 8 inch cake tins, and distrubute the batter half between each cake tin.
-Bake the cakes in a preheated oven until the skewer comes out clean or only a few crumbs clinging to it.
-Let the cakes to rest and cool on a wire rack. In the mean time prepare the chocolate ganache frosting.
To make the frosting
-Chop up the dark chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream to just before simmering (when it has little bubbles around the exterior. -Pour the heated cream over the chopped chocolate and let it sit for a few minutes before stirring.
-Stir until the mixture is all the same colour. Let it cool down until you have reached the desired consitency.
I hope you have a beautiful day and enjoyed this culinary adventure!
xx
