It was a birthday cake for my mother. As I got the information for her surprise dinner party, I thought...what a great opportunity to give her something special from my heart...AND I'd already promised you a dessert. Win-Win.
I made a deliciously moist chocolate cake with a whipped cream cheese icing, and fresh, sugared strawberries. Be jealous.
I decided not to experiment on my mom...at least not on her birthday, so I used recipes that have given me fabulous results in the past.
This chocolate cake is my 'go-to' cake for everything. This is, hands down, the best chocolate cake you will ever eat. I cannot take credit for the recipe, just the time I spent testing recipes to find this gem. It is so simple, but I will never tell you where I got the recipe because..well, I want to make a better chocolate cake than you.
After I got the cake working, I sliced two boxes of fresh strawberries and poured about a 1/4 cup of sugar over the top. I mixed lightly, just to blend the sugar with the berries, and then let them set to macerate while I made the icing.
Maceration is a fabulous process that releases the juices and softens the berries until they melt in your mouth. I like this option better then a glaze because you still have the beautiful natural flavor of the fruit, not the mediocre taste of processed food.
I actually made two icings. First, I made a chocolate frosting that I had never tried before. I got the recipe off the back of the Hershey's Cocoa Powder box. Very easy, but VERY sugary. It calls for 3 cups of powdered sugar, which is not unusual for a frosting of this nature (a buttercream knock off), but man...if the consistency had been right with only 2 cups, I would have left it at that. I had planned on using the chocolate frosting to ice the outside of the cake, while only using the whipped cream cheese icing as a filling with the strawberries. But, as you can see, it was so beautiful with the fruit peeking out from between that chocolate heaven. I couldn't bear to cover it up. Not to mention the super sugar-fest that I referred to earlier.
My whipped cream cheese icing recipe is from allrecipes.com. It is light, and creamy with just the right amount of sugar. It stands up to room temperature very well, and is absolutely divine.
For presentation, I started with my base chocolate cake layer. Then piped on a thick layer of the icing. Do not waste money on icing bags. I have happily used Ziploc bags for over a year now, they are cheap, you can use any piping tips you have, and it's the easiest clean up in the world, aka: the trash can.
I spooned on the strawberries, taking care not to let too much of the juices make it onto the icing. I didn't want it to run and make the second layer less stable. Lather, rinse, repeat, add a pretty boarder to the top layer to cradle the strawberries, and you're done!
Make sure that you level the cake layers before decoration. Cakes dome when they bake, and even a slight incline can make a topple MUCH easier, and no one should have to cry over spilt cake. I use a good bread knife. It's very easy, and completely worth it.
Needless to say, my mom loved the cake, and I had the pleasure of being rude by oohing and aahing over my own dish.
Tomorrow, I will tell you a story of a Taco Salad, and how it graced our table last night.
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