Butter Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I have taken it upon myself to dub myself as the official special occasion baker of the family. I don’t really think anyone minds so much. My mom is the only one who enjoys cooking and she’s not one for following recipes or trying out new recipes… she’s more of the “cooking” type, I suppose.

So, as the special occasion baker, I asked my brother whose birthday was Thursday, what he wanted me to bake for his birthday. My brother, Mike is one of the smartest, most creative people I know. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of knowledge that is floating around in that head of his. He’s always been that way, too. But, aside from that… aside from the intelligence and creativity, he has a huge heart. And while it’s great to be smart and talented… having a big, open heart with lots of love to give is what I look up to the most in my big brother. For his birthday dessert, he simply asked for a yellow cake with chocolate icing. No problem.
The thing is… yellow cake is a color of cake… not a flavor! So, I waffled between a vanilla cake (which typically turns out white in color) and a butter cake (the more traditional yellow color). I finally decided on a butter cake after finding this recipe.

The icing… well, that was interesting. I wanted to make a buttercream. But, for whatever reason, like a dumb ass, I just made the recipe on the back of the Hershey's Dark Cocoa Box. Once I made it and tasted it, I decided that this wasn’t the frosting that I thought I was making… No, I wanted to make this frosting. But, I couldn’t find this recipe in my folder. This is one of those times that instead of being glad that I don’t have a computer at home…. I was quite frustrated. So, I had to find another buttercream recipe and decided to try one of Dorie’s buttercream recipes: Chocolate-Malt Buttercream. Except… I couldn’t remember if my brother liked Malt (incidentally, he does), so I left the malt out. I ended up using the dark frosting for decoration.

Anyway… long story short… This cake and frosting was a miss. The cake was dry and tasteless and the frosting was sweet and gritty (from the brown sugar). I think that not using the malt, made the frosting have less flavor, I should’ve amped up the chocolate since I was leaving the malt out.

I’ve not had a lot of luck with cake textures. It seems that I do well with chocolate cakes, they are usually pretty moist, but for whatever reason, I can’t get a really moist cake texture from any other cake. The cakes previously had still been good, but honestly… not as good and moist as a boxed cake. Which seems so weird to me. Homemade should be better, right?

The worst part is that when you bake for a special occasion you want it to be something really great. So, it sucks that my brother’s cake wasn’t really all that great. I’m not quite sure if it was the recipe or me (though, let’s be honest… the cake recipe was a 5 star recipe on Southern Living…. It must have been me), but I’m not giving up on cakes just yet.

Happy Birthday Mike! I’m sorry your cake kind of sucked.

Also…. As a side note, my blog also had a birthday of sorts… May 23rd was the one year anniversary of my blog! C-R-A-Z-Y!

For the Chocolate-Malt Buttercream

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup malted milk powder
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup boiling water
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted, butter, at room temperature
Pinch of salt
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
To Make the Buttercream: Melt the chocolate with half the brown sugar in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from the heat.

Whisk the malt powder and cocoa together in a small bowl, pour over 3 tablespoons of the boiling water and whisk until smooth. Whisking the melted chocolate gently, gradually pour in the hot malt-cocoa mixture and stir to blend—it should be dark, smooth and glossy; set aside.

Working with the stand mixer, preferably fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining brown sugar and beat for 2 to 3 minutes more, until well blended. Beat in the salt and vanilla extract, then reduce the mixer speed to low. Scrape in the chocolate mixture and mix until smooth. Still working on low speed, gradually add the confectioners' sugar. When all the sugar is in, increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for a couple of minutes. Lower the speed and add the remaining tablespoon of boiling water, then increase the speed and give the frosting another quick spin. It will be light and should be thick enough to use immediately. If it doesn't hold its shape, beat it just a bit more.

Guinness Chocolate Mini Cake

You know what's frustrating? When you have the perfect idea and everything goes great, and you get so excited that its going to be complete and utter awesomeness and then its time for the finale and it goes straight to hell. Well, at least presentation-wise? Yeah, welcome to my baking adventures this past weekend.

I had some leftover Guinness from my St. Pattys Day shindig and since I try not to drink much booze while marathon training, I decided to use some in a cake recipe instead! (I can swear off booze, but I can't swear off sugar... interesting, huh?).

I bought these cute little mini-pans ages ago and have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use them. Well, that opportunity presented itself this weekend, when I had a chocolate craving and nobody in town to share a cake with.

I decided to use Ina Garten's Beatty Cake recipe that I printed out ages ago and instead of using hot coffee in the recipe... I'd use Guinness... Guinness in cake, you say? Brilliant! (I couldnt resist).

I ended up quartering the recipe. Which turned out to fit perfectly in the three little cake pans. They were each 4 inch cake pans. As they were baking, I was trying to decide what type of frosting I wanted to use... I decided I wanted something creamy and chocolatey, but that I'd also like to use some Guinness in the frosting as well. So.... I decided to adapt a cream cheese frosting recipe into a chocolate cream cheese guinness frosting. Yes, you read that right.... Chocolate. Cream Cheese. Guinness. Frosting. Oh my.

So, you can see where the excitement came from. I was so excited to taste this chocolately, booze-y, decadence in cake form... that I didn't even consider the fact that the cake was actually taller than it was round (since it was in petite form) or doing a crumb coat with the frosting and then chilling the cake in the fridge for a bit. Noooooo Sir... I immedately went to frosting that whole blame cake eagerly awaiting the moment that I could slice into it and produce the most beautiful tantilizing piece O' cake you've ever seen.

And thats when this happened.

The whole thing basically fell completely apart. Into a giant chocolatey mess on my maternal Step Grandfather's first wives China.

Sigh. At least it tasted brilliant! Soooooooooo delicious once chilled and the flavors melded. Yum. I will definitely make this in regular size at some point.

Cake Recipe follow exactly, except instead of 1 cup of Hot coffee use 1 cup of Guinness. I also used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa.

Guinness Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8oz package of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2tbsps Cocoa
2 tbsp Guinness
1 16 oz package of powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese and butter at low speed until creamy. Add vanilla, cocoa, and guinness and beat till mixed. Slowly add powdered sugar until creamy and fluffy.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

My 5th birthday was a big one. I can classify it by saying that it was both my best and worst birthday all rolled into one. It's one of the few birthdays that I have a vivid recollection of. I can remember having cake and ice cream in our dark kitchen and I remember my dad sent me a bouquet to school had a little cabbage patch doll head mixed in with the flowers. (Yeah, that totally sounds weird, but it was freaking awesome). It was 1985, the year of the cabbage patch dolls and not only did I get a cabbage patch doll for my birthday, I got to go to toys r us and pick my own out! That was all the good stuff. Now, for the bad. I woke up in the middle of the night, that night of my birthday and I threw up. Multiple times.

My 5 year old mind couldn't grasp the concept of a stomach virus. So, I immediately chalked it up as the icing on the cake's fault. And from that moment on, I swore off icings and frostings of any kind. This lasted for a good 7-8 years or so. I'd always scrape the frosting off of all birthday cakes, cupcakes, brownies, etc. I was convinced that I was somehow "allergic" to frosting.

Ahhhh... the good ole days, when throwing something up would scare me off of ever having it again. By the time I was 12 or so, I was back to trying frosting and have been devouring it ever since. I love frosting, it's the best part of the cake, right?

My favorite frosting is definitely cream cheese frosting. Yum. After I accepted frosting back into my life, my favorite cake became dark chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum.

That was until last night.
Last night, I decided to try out another frosting to put on the Amy Sedaris Cupcakes and I whipped up a mini batch of this frosting from the Hershey Website.

I was never really sure what exactly a buttercream frosting was, so I was anxious to try this. Well, you know what buttercream frosting is? Perfection. Absolute perfection.

This was one of the most delicious things I've ever had in my mouth. I scraped the bowl completely clean with my fingers and then licked my fingers completely clean. And don't think that I didn't lick that empty cupcake wrapper completely after I took that picture either.

So, my experimentation with frostings is officially done. This one wins. No need for competition.

Hershey's One Bowl Buttercream Frosting

6 tbsps of butter, softened
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark)
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat butter in medium bowl. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with milk; beat to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

By the way, I must have celebrities on the brain, because the whole time I was photographing this cupcake, I kept thinking... "wow, if cupcakes could look like people, this one would totally be Suri Cruise."