A Chocolate Cake Extravaganza…

A long time ago in a land far far away, which really means when we went for a visit to my MIL, she had an extra copy of the much loved and treasured Southern Living magazine.

Now to give you some brief background on this chocolate adventure I was at my local grocery store standing in the check out lane. My cart was loaded to the brim with all the fixing's for my thanksgiving dinner. As I patiently waited for my turn to empty my checkbook the magazine vendor was there diligently refreshing the racks at all the check out stations. All of us ohh’d and ahh’ed as we saw her depot the December edition into the rack with this amazing cake on the cover.

Seeing as I was still basking in the warmth of my success from my spectacular German Chocolate Tower of Amazing-ness at Thanksgiving. I decided to throw caution to the wind and whip up something equally spectacular for our Christmas Celebration.

I again asked the age old “Be Still and Know” question “How Hard Could it Be??”

Should you decide to undertake this perilous chocolate adventure for yourself I have provided the link to the recipe below.

I warn you it is not for the faint of heart.

Southern Living’s Chocolate Citrus Cake

If your counting there are 21 separate things listed in the ingredient for this cake.

Yes 21!!!

Hands on Time: 1 Hour (that means one hour in the Southern living test kitchens with a full staff of experienced pastry chefs with assistants and a fully stocked pastry kitchen) in the normal world it probably took about twice that long.

Total Time: 6 Hours and 40 minutes (plus 45 minutes in Hell) giving us a grand total of 7 hours and 25 minutes.

Now I should have know there was going to be trouble when I ran across one of my pet peeves' where recipes are concerned.

In my humble opinion I feel that all recipes should be written from the perspective of what needs to be done first. This is a small matter but if I am going to nit-pick then I feel that the Whipped Ganache Filling needs to be listed first since it needs to chill for 2 hours in the refrigerator. It is a good thing the DD and I read through the recipe  before getting started.

But I digress.

The Ganache was simple enough. Heavy cream chocolate chips and a splash of orange liquor melted in the microwave and stir until smooth. Easy peazy!

Waiting for two hours for it to chill was an exercise in patience. But it did give us plenty of time to get the cakes underway.

Here is all you need to do.

Completely empty your pantry of every ingredient you have and then begin.

Cake flour

Sugar

Brown Sugar

Eggs

Butter

Sour Cream

Baking Soda

Baking Powder

Parchment Paper

Shortening

Chocolate Chips

Coffee

Baking Pans

We melted more chocolate, we brewed espresso, we alternately added dry and wet ingredients…

Things were moving along rather smoothly if I do say so myself. The DD and I were patting ourselves on the back and anticipating the afterglow of our chocolate success.

Out of the oven and they are looking very good and smelling even better!

 

The chilled Ganache was ready for whipping.

The chocolate was set perfectly, it was wonderfully flavorful and exactly right.

We heaped it on and stacked our cake!

All that was left was the frosting.

“How hard could it be???”

The 7 Minute Frosting, well I have affectionately re-named it “45 Minutes in Hell Frosting” as I poured the first batch down the disposal and then had to completely start over.

Let’s just say that if I ever attempt to make this cake ever again I will be making a substitution in the frosting. Finally after a few course words and a few moments of wishing that my dear departed grandma was still with us (she would have totally know what to do), I also considered downing a few shots of the orange liquor that was sitting on the counter to dull the pain of my frosting failure. However not wanting to allow our first failure to deter us we forged ahead.

I consulted…who else, my Paula.

Thankfully her directions were a but clearer and after reading them through few times we managed to make something that appeared to be somewhat similar to the pictured frosting.

At least the DD had a good time making swirly designs in the frosting. Teenagers are so resilient in recovering from major baking trauma. I however may have nightmares for months to come from my “45 Minutes in Hell Frosting” experience.

Needless to say…my cake pictured above did not come out resembling the perfection of the one pictured below on the cover of Southern Living.

It did however end up tasting very good, all trauma aside. I would recommend cutting the slices on the small side as this is a very rich dark chocolate. If you were to consume a slice the size of the one pictures above I feel certain you would fall into a complete chocolate coma for a very long time.

Blessings

Robin

Next up I’ll give you a glimpse into our snowy adventures in North Carolina and The Biltmore Estate.