Chocolate Cake with Fresh Cream Frosting

Eggless Chocolate Cake

Cookies-N-Cream Cake

The buttercream for this cake is made up from margaraine and this was my first try with it. You can actually also make this cake using the whipped cream as frosting. I will share the recipe for buttercream with margaraine over here but I found it a bit too sweet and so will be trying out a new one with new measurements; but till then you can enjoy this one too.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup margaraine
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp water ( if needed)

DIRECTIONS:
I just followed the same method for making the buttercream as I do with shortening or butter. Beat the margaraine which is at room temperature on a slow speed. Gradually add the sugar and beat on medium to high speed till the cream becomes light and fluffy. You can add the vanilla when you are adding the sugar. If you think the mixture is too solid or thick in consistency you can add  1 tsp water and then beat it again. You can add the water till you reach the desired consistency.

For assembling the cake, frost the buttercream over the chocolate cake. Use the oreo chocolate cookies for garnishing. I had cut them into halves and also crushed some of them to garnish the cake.

Shaved Chocolate Decorated Cake

This was a chocolate mini cake I had made for my mom-in-law's birthday. The craving for chocolate never ends!!

Chocolate Collar Cake

For this chocolate cake, I had tried the Paula Deen recipe from food.com. I must say this is really best chocolate cake ever. It is just perfect; moist and fluffy. I will share this recipe below:

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups all purpose flour                      

2 cups  sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder                                    

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder                                                   

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda                                                   

1 cup milk                                                  

1 cup strong brewed coffee                                                   

3/4 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs

 

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda. Add milk, coffee, oil, and eggs. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth.

Pour evenly into prepared pans and bake for 23 to 25 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes, Remove from pans, and let cool completely on wire racks.

I frosted the cake with whipped cream and made a chocolate collar around the cake. This was the first time I made this collar and tried this technique, but it was easy to do and came out beautifully. For the chocolate collar, you have to melt the chocolate and put it in a piping bag. Snip off the end of the piping bag and pipe out the chocolate in a haphazard manner over a wax paper strip. Let it stand for some minutes till the chocolate loses its shine. Then wrap this wax paper around the cake and put it in the freezer for around 10-15 minutes. After taking it out from the freezer, slowly peel off the wax paper careful enough not to break the chocolate collar.

Sonic-The Hedgehog Cake

I had made this "Sonic-The Hedgehog" cake for my son's 10th birthday. I had carved this cake out of a 9x13 rectangular cake. I had used the template from the internet and just had blown it up a little to get it to the size I wanted. I usually carve the cake when it is frozen so that it becomes easy to cut it. I have used the simple star fill-in technique on this one with the star tips 16 and 18. The basic cake was a marble cake with buttercream frosting. The kids at the party were excited to see the cake.

Little Mermaid Cake

This was a two-tier little mermaid cake I made for a "1st birthday party" recently. It was a vanilla cake filled with strawberry mousse and frosted with buttercream. The decorations like the seashells, starfish, seaweeds, pearls were all handmade out of the modeling chocolate. This did take me a lot of time as I did not have molds for any of the things. So I had created my own templates and did the decorations with their help. I used mixture of brown sugar and graham crackers for the sand.

Chocolate Devotion Cake

For Chocolate Cake

I always follow the Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe given on their site (https://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipe-details.aspx?id=184). Its a perfect one for a rich moist chocolate. The only variation I made this time was substitute oil with butter to bring out the texture of the chocolate cake. I used 1/2 cup melted and cooled butter instead of 1/2 cup vegetable oil in the original recipe. You will get two 8-inch cakes from the recipe.

For Chocolate Mousse
This is the recipe from Joy of Baking and it turned out perfect. I needed mousse only as a filling and was trying this recipe for the first time, so I had done it on a smaller quantity.

2 oz semisweet chocolate morsels
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut in small pieces
1 large egg, separated
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar, divided
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

In a medium-sized bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter. Remove from heat and set aside to cool for a few minutes. Then whisk in the egg yolk. Let the mixture cool completely before mixing the egg yolk as if it is still warm, the butter will melt. Cover and refrigerate while you whip the egg whites and whipping cream.
In the bowl with an electric or a hand mixer, whip the egg white until foamy. Gradually add one tablespoon of sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form, yet the white is still glossy and not dry. Set aside.
In another bowl, whip the heavy cream, remaining one tablespoon sugar and vanilla extract until soft peaks form.
Remove the chocolate mixture from the refrigerator, and gently stir the beaten egg white into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold in the whipped cream.
For a better understanding you can watch the video on the site joyofbaking.com

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream
This was the first time I made Swiss meringue buttercream. Oh I just loved the velvety texture of this buttercream. I was thrilled to get it right the very first time. I had halved the recipe from Running with Spatulas. For the videos I had referred to the modern buttercream class from Craftsy which really gives a nice explaination on how to prepare the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I will share the recipe over here.

 3 egg whites
 1 cup unsalted butter (tbsp size chunks)
 3/4 cup granulated sugar
 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels (melted and cooled)

Put egg whites and sugar in a mixing bowl. Fill a large saucepan halfway with water and heat on the stove over medium heat. Put mixing bowl with egg whites and sugar over the sauce pan water (the bowl should not touch the water). With a hand mixer, whisk constantly until sugar is completely dissolved (it will feel smooth between your fingers; you won't feel it gritty or won't feel the sugar between your fingers). Remove from heat and mix on low with the hand mixer until frothy. Slowly increase speed until soft peaks form. The mixture should be completely at room temperature before you start adding the butter. The bowl should not be felt warm to touch. The butter can melt if the sugar and egg mixture is warm. Slowly add one piece of butter at a time, waiting until each is fully incorporated before adding another.Once half of the butter is added you can increase mixing speed. You will have a curdled appearance of the icing but this is completely normal; so do not panic. The icing will get together eventually. Add in the vanilla and using a spatula slowly fold in the melted chocolate chips until combined. Then whisk it till you reach the desired consistency. This icing is very smooth and can have many air bubbles. If your icing it too soft, toss it in the fridge, but keep in mind that it will behave like butter, so don’t leave it too long or you will end up with hard icing. The chocolate decorations are done from the melted chocolate.

Pineapple Cream Delight

A semi homemade cake for my friend's birthday!!

INGREDIENTS:
For Cake:
1 pack of pineapple cake mix ( I used Pillsbury for this one)
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water
1 tsp cardamom powder
1 tsp nutmeg powder
1 can of pineapple chunks (20 oz)

For Whipped Cream Frosting
2 cups heavy cream
6 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla

DIRECTIONS:
Bake two 8-inch round cakes according to instructions; just add the cardamom and nutmeg powders into the batter. This brings out the pineapple flavor in the cake. Cut off the domes after cooling them completely. Using the syrup in the pineapple can, with a pastry brush, brush it over both the cakes slightly to make the cake more moist.  Place one cake on the cake board and spread some whipped cream and then put the pineapple chunks on this. If the chunks are too big, cut them into small pieces with a sharp knife. Place the other cake on top of it and frost the whole cake with whipped cream. Decorate with the pineapple chunks.

For preparing the whipped cream frosting, beat the chilled heavy cream, sugar and vanilla on medium speed till if forms into stiff peaks. (Make sure the bowl which you are preparing the cream in and the blades are frozen for half an before you start making the cream).

Banana Cream Cake

INGREDIENTS:

For cake:
1 box vanilla cake mix
3 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 1/4 cup water

For Frosting
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 box of instant banana cream pudding

For garnishing:
4-5 strawberries thinly sliced
12-15 sliced almonds

DIRECTIONS:
Bake the cake according to the directions on the box and let it cool completely before frosting. For the banana cream frosting, take the heavy cream and start it to beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Then add sugar, vanilla, and 1/2 box of the banana cream pudding to it. Then beat it on medium speed till it reaches the stiff peak consistency.

Frost the cake with banana cream and garnish it with the strawberries and almonds.

Award-winning "Back To School" Cake

This was the cake I had entered in the "Sweet Treats Cake Competition" at Colnia, NJ. I received an 'Honorable Mention' award for this one. This was my first cake competition ever. The cake competition was actually a fund-raiser for the Colonia Middle School, so I had thought of making a "Back to School" cake for it.

The basic cake was a vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. I had used the box mix for baking the cakes, but I had 'doctored' it for the density of the cakes for the tiers to remain sturdy and not crack. I had found this way from this link  http://baking911.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cakebaking&action=print&thread=2163 I had used the recipe for Extended Pound Cake. It turned out pretty good but it was more crumbly. I managed to frost the cake but it took a lot of time.

The cake decorations are all made out of modeling chocolate. The crayons, pencils, rulers, calculators, report cards everything is chocolate. Also the school bus details are created using the modeling chocolate. It took me around 4 days to bake the cakes and the chocolate decorations from scratch; but it was all worth as this was my first award winning cake!!

Angry Birds Cake

This was the cake I made for a 3-yr-old girl who simply loves "angry birds". She is allergic to milk and so her mom had got me the non-dairy frosting. It was basically a two-layered cake with the bottom layer German chocolate and the top one vanilla and the whole cake was covered in the non-dairy frosting. The frosting was Duncan Hines Frosting Creations tub. We were going to use the angry birds edible image on the cake. I shaded the sky to go along with the image. I used the tip#12 for the sky with different shades of blue using one at a time. For the grass I used the grass tip. The edible image was added about 1 hour prior to the party. The only problem I noticed was that due to the uneven surface of the sky below, the image cracked a little bit after it merged into the cake. So from next time onward I am going to keep the surface below the image plain.

Boy baby shower cake

The basic cake is a dairy free chocolate cake covered with whipped cream frosting and modelling chocolate decorations.

INGREDIENTS:

1.5 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup Hershey's unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup oil
1 cup water
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl. Add the wet ingredients one by one to the this mixture and mix well with a whisk. Pour the batter into 7-inch lined pan and bake for around 40 minutes. Let the cake cool completely before frosting.

I decorated the cake with modelling chocolate decorations. For this I had used the semi-sweet chocolate. I had got the baby boy shower favor from the party store. I am glad that the mom-to-be loved it!!

Pirate Ship Cake

This is the cake I made for a 3-year-old girl. It had to be a pirate ship cake. The cake is basically a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling and chocolate buttercream covering. I had baked two 9-inches square cakes and refrigerated them after cooling down overnight. That helps to carve the cake easily as it becomes more firm. With the help of an iron I had drawn the template (shape of the iron) on a paper. I placed the paper on each of the cakes and carved out the shape with a sharp knife. I glued both of these cakes using the chocolate mousse. Then with the leftovers of the cake, I created a small raised deck on the back side of the ship and glued it again with the chocolate mousse. After this, I covered the whole cake with chocolate buttercream. To give it a more ship like effect, I drew the ridges on the sides and also the planks on the top of the deck using a butterknife. With black buttercream, I piped out the rings on the side of the boat.

The chocolate gold coins were used as treasure (got them in the candy section at Wegmans) and the gobstopper candies as the cannon balls. The sails were paper-crafted by me by printing out the required design and putting them into skewers. I had got the pirate figurines from Party City. After placing all the toppers, I just piped out the blue buttercream with tip #21 around the ship to give the water effect.

Chocolate Ganache Cake

This is a chocolate cake filled and frosted with chocolate ganache and modelling chocolate decorations. I tried out the chocolate ganache for the first time for this cake, it turned out very good. I followed the recipe from one of my favorite site www.joyofbaking.com which I am going to share below.

INGREDIENTS:

For Chocolate cake:
1 cup sugar
1 whole egg
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate morsels

For Chocolate ganache:
8 ounces semisweet chocolate (chopped)
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp vanilla essence (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In another bowl mix eggs, milk, oil and beat well for about 2 mins. Add the dry ingredients to these wet ingredients and mix well. Then add the boiling water and stir well for another 2-3 minutes. The batter will be thin. Stir in the chocolate morsels and pour the batter into 7 inch greased and lined cake pan. Bake for around 25-30 min or until the toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For the ganache, take the chopped semisweet chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Take the heavy cream and butter in a saucepan and heat over the stove until it just begins to boil. Pour this onto the chocolate and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Then gently stir the mixture until well incorporated.DO NOT BEAT THE MIXTURE. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave it on the counter overnight if you want to frost the cake so that it thickens. If it does not thicken, you may put it into the refrigerator for about 1-2 hours before frosting the cake. You can also immediately pour the ganache on the cake if you like but it is very thin and liquid; so place your cake on the wire racks and then pour the ganache over the cake.

For the modelling chocolate bows, I watched some youtube videos and followed them for decorating my cake.

Eggless Pineapple Pastries

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 can of condensed milk
1/2 cup melted butter (you can substitute it by 1/2 cup veg oil)
1/3 cup crushed pineapples
1/4 cup pineapple juice (from draining 1/3 cup crushed pineapples)
1 tsp pineapple essence (you can use vanilla also)

FILLING AND GARNISHING:
2 cups whipped cream for filling and frosting
1 to 1 1/2 cups of finely chopped pineapple for filling and garnishing

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line one 9- inch cake pan with parchment or wax paper and grease it with cooking spray. Sift and mix together the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add the condensed milk, pineapple juice, and melted butter. Mix well with a whisk and then add the crushed pineapples to the batter and mix it again. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 30-40 min or until the toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool.

For assembling the pastries, cut the cake midway and spread the whipped frosting on the lower half of the cake. Then cover it with the finely chopped pineapples all over. Place the upper half of the cake over it. Then cut into 2 inch x 2 inch pieces. With the fresh whipped cream, decorate the pastries as per your choice of decoration and garnish them with pineapples. Let it refrigerate for around 1 hour before serving.

"Tom and Jerry" Birthday cake

This was my first time doing the edible cake image frosting. I had done a lot of research on the frosting to be used on the cake for this as we prefer whipped cream over the buttercream or any other icing and the cake image does not come out good on the whipped frosting. Most of them had the opinion that the colors in the image run out and fade away because of the high water content in the whipped cream. The buttercream was the best to use. I did not want to take any chances with this image as I was doing it for the first time, so I did the combination of both the frostings. I frosted the cake with buttercream just under the image and rest all the cake was done with whipped cream frosting. The image blended well after putting it over the cake in about 10-15 minutes. This was pretty easy to do and I followed each and every instruction on the instruction sheet provided with the cake image.

 The cake was two layered, the bottom layer was chocolate fudge and the top layer was vanilla with strawberry mousse as the filling. I used the star tip on the sides of the cake and tip #195 for the flowers on the borders. As there was not much place for the borders on the top of the cake after putting the image, I just decorated with sprinkles. The birthday boy had a blast cutting into it and his friends loved the cake a lot.

Captain Huggy Face Cake

There were a few "first times" while baking this cake..It was my first dairy free cake (the basic recipe), my first experiment with frozen buttercream transfer, was trying out the roses after a very long time..so I was a bit tensed as to how everything will turn out. I was pretty happy with the outcome..My son wanted the "captain huggy face" cake for his 9th birthday so I made the image of the charachter out of frozen buttercream transfer. This was a vanilla cake with mango cream as the filling and whipped cream frosting. I had searched this recipe on internet and decided to try out. It was a bit oily, so next time may be I will add less oil. Also, I have made changes to the original recipe.

INGREDIENTS:
3 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp vinegar
2 c water
2 c sugar
3/4 c oil
4 tsp vanilla

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and keep aside. Mix the wet ingredients in another bowl except the oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix well with a whisk. Then add the oil and mix again until smooth batter is formed. Pour this batter into 2 8-inch greased pans. Bake for around 30 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool completely before frosting the cake.

For mango cream filling, add around 2/3 cup mango puree to 1 cup heavy cream and 4 tbsp sugar and beat on medium speed till you get stiff peaks.

For the frozen buttercream transfer, follow this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFx38a7Bjfw .  The design I chose was bit small so it was a bit tough for me to get the exact details..but for larger designs, the technique will be more easy I guess.

Winnie the Pooh cake

This was "Winnie the pooh" cake order for 1st birthday...It was half sheet vanilla cake with fresh banana cream filling and whipped cream frosting. I had ordered the magic balloon set for Winnie the pooh. I had given the cake a garden look and so piped out the green areas with star tip #21 and created a river in between. Also, the yellow flowers are piped out with the same star tip. For the rocks in the river, I melted some chocolate and mixed frosted flakes cereal in it and then dropped spoonful on a dish and kept it in the refrigerator for around 1 hour. Then after they were hard enough I just placed them on the river flow...

Strawberry Shortcake

INGREDIENTS:

Sponge cake:
3 eggs seperated (yolks and white)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup water
2 tsp vanilla essence

Strawberry mousse
1 pack of instant strawberry mousse ( I used Dr.Oetker's strawberry supreme)

Filling and Garnishing:
2 cups of whipped cream icing ( you will find the recipe in earlier blog posts)
1/2 lb fresh strawberries thinly sliced

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl and keep aside. Beat 3 egg yolks in an electric mixer at high speed for about 1 minute. Add 3/4 cup sugar, beating constantly till the egg yolks are thick. Then add vanilla and 1/4 cup water with it, beating at low speed till it blends well. To this, add flour mixture and blend well at low speed. Keep it aside.

Beat egg whites in a bowl at room temperature at high speed till they are foamy. Slowly add rest of the sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Slowly stir the egg mixture into the cake batter gently folding with a rubber spatula moving in the same direction until the mixture is well blended in the batter. Dont stir too much as it will take out the air out of the cake batter and the cake wont spring up much. To make the sponge cake fluffy, retain the air in the mixture as much as possible. Pour the batter into a greased 10 pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes till cake springs back when touched lightly in the center. Let it cool down.

ASSEMBLING THE CAKE:
Till the cake cools down, prepare the strawberry mousse as per the instructions on the pack and keep it ready. Cut the cake in midway and put the strawberry mousse over the lower half of the cake spreading it with the spatula reaching over to the sides. Arrange half of the cut strawberries over the mousse. Put the upper half of the cake over this layer and frost it with the whipped cream. For the borders I used the star tip (#22) and created some shells diagonally all over. Add the reamaining cut strawberries to the top of the cake. Let the cake chill for around 4-6 hours before serving. Overnight chilling gives the best results.