Chocolate Layer Cake with Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting

Awesome Sauce, Junky Monkey and I are part of a small group of friends who meet up once a week for dinner. We each take turns hosting the group. So, with the holidays and the New Year, we needed to do something special to celebrate. The Saturday after New Year's Day we had a potluck party with our friends. I decided to take this opportunity to try out a few more of Mark Bittman's recipes.

One recipe I made was his Chocolate Layer Cake (Page 724). This recipe was very simple to make. The most difficult part was melting the chocolate without letting it burn. Both Junky Monkey and I were thrilled with the batter. It was fluffy and chocolaty and delicious! We looked forward to a wonderful cake.

I decided to cover the chocolate cake with Mark Bittman's Vanilla Butter Cream Frosting (Page 727). This frosting was delicious, but a bit sticky. I doubled the recipe because I wanted to decorate the cake and do a nice thick frosting. I had trouble when I went to frost the cake by piping the icing through a metal tip. The icing held its form okay, but there still wasn't enough of it to heavily frost a cake.

Then, disaster happened. There wasn't room in my fridge to put the cake, so I decided it would be okay on the counter for two hours. BIG MISTAKE. The worst part: I know better...I worked in a pastry shop for years. The cake cracked and fell as the icing ran. Butter-based icing should be refrigerated!!! Next time, I clear out space in the fridge! I thought since it was such a short time it would be okay...I didn't think about the fact that my home was warm. Oh well. A little tip if this happens to you at home: serve the cake pre-sliced. It is much harder for anyone to tell!

I did finish the cake and everyone at the party liked it. I was personally disappointed in both of these recipes. I would like to note here that I am NOT a trained chef. I follow these recipes to the best of my ability, but if they do not come out correctly, it may be me, not the recipe. I am rating these recipes based on my personal experience, but I want readers to take that with a grain of salt. I am an amateur who easily could have made a rookie mistake. I will level with you about any substitutions or changes I made to the recipe and will let you know what I thought.

The chocolate cake was good, but was a bit drier than I prefer. Additionally, the cake had a funny aftertaste that I couldn't get past. I still haven't figured out where it came from. The icing was heavy and VERY sweet. I prefer a European-Style Butter Cream which is much lighter and much less sweet. Awesome Sauce also thought the chocolate cake had a bit of a funny taste and found it a bit dry and crumbly. Junky Monkey was also not a huge fan of the cake. She also found the icing a bit too sweet.


Below are some pictures:

Here is the cake in the pan.

Here is the cake on the cooling rack.

Icing in the bowl.

OH NO!!!! IT FELL!!

We ate it anyway.

Chocolate Layer Cake Rating:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 6
Junky Monkey: 6
Awesome Sauce: 5

Vanilla Butter Cream Icing Rating:

The Clumsy Gourmet: 4
Junky Monkey: 7
Awesome Sauce: 6.5