Tower Of Chocolate Cake

Yes! You are right this was my birthday cake and this was really a ridiculous chocolate cake; it was full of chocolate and you will die for it if you love chocolate.

I didn't mention to you that we love chocolate. I usually make chocolate cake for them on their birthdays and this time although is my birthday, my son requested for a chocolate cake. So, we came to know about Crumb Boss and her special heavenly cake, which she calls the 'Chocolate Tower of Death Cake'. I didn't want to use the same name which I find unlucky and changed to the 'Tower of Chocolate Cake'.

I didn't follow all her recipe and made some changes to it, but if you like to know more about Crumb Boss you can refer to her blogs.

Tower of chocolate cake recipe:

For the ingredients

You will need:

1. Chocolate cake
2. Chocolate ganache
3. Cream cheese icing
4. Salted caramel butter cream

For cake ingredients:

• 11/2 cups plain flour
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 227g butter
• 300g fine sugar
• 6 eggs about 50g each
• 170g buttermilk( I made the buttermilk myself by using 170g milk with 1Tbsp of lemon juice)
• 1tsp vanilla

Method:

• Preheat oven to 170°C, measure all the ingredients and sift all the dry ingredients together, get 2 round 8 inches baking pans and lined them with baking paper.
• Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy, then add eggs one at a time. 

• Add egg gradually, beating thoroughly after each addition. In between mixing, add some flour mixture to combine if the mixture started to curb. 

• At low speed add in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.

• Stir until just combined and the mixture is smooth. Pour mixture into the prepared pans and bake at 170°C for about 35 minutes or until done.

To prepared the Cream cheese icing:
Ingredients:

• 170g cream cheese
• 40g butter
• 70g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla

Cream together until light and creamy.

To prepared chocolate ganache:

• 130g chocolate 70% cocoa butter
• 130g cream
• 30g butter

Heat cream to simmering and add to chocolate, wait for a few minutes then stir to a smooth mixture. Add in the soft butter and continue stirring to combine well.

For the salted caramel butter cream recipe, you can find it at the salted caramel macarons recipes. I never make this, because I still have some left over from the macarons making.

To assemble cake:
Slice each cake into 3 equal layers, so you will have 6 layers.

• Assemble it with different cream filling for each layer. 

• Cover the outside with a thin layer of chocolate ganache and keep it in the fridge for a few hours first before pouring a layer of warm chocolate ganache over it.

Coffee Macarons and Salted caramel Filling( with no feet)

Chocolate and Raspberry Macarons

These chocolate and raspberry macarons were made a long time ago. I didn't make macarons for a long time... it should be more than a year already. As I have very little experience of making macarons, making it perfect is really hard. The macarons I made today was unsuccessful it has no feet and I have no clue why it happened......:(. I did it the same way just like the older patch.  The only reason I can think off was the drying process, may be the macaron was not dry properly before baking, or it could be the baking temperature .....etc. Anyway, I need more practice and I'll make this post for future reference.

The failed coffee macarons with salted caramel filling below have no feet, but still tastes delicious :D.

The coffee macarons and salted caramel filling recipes. I referred to Sue's blogs.

Coffee macarons shell ingredients

• 125 g pure icing sugar
• 125 g almond meal (almond flour or ground almond)
• 100 g egg whites (i separated 24 -48 hours in advance and keep in the fridge.)
• 125 g caster sugar (super fine sugar)
• 30 ml water (2 tablespoons)
• 7 g intant coffee( ground)

                                                                         Pic 1&2

                                                           Pic 3&4

Making macaroons shell
Method:

• Sift almond meal and icing sugar together through fine sieve and set aside.
• Divide egg whites into two equal portions (50 g each portion).  Pour the first portion of egg white (50 g)and coffee into the almond meal/icing sugar mixture (pic 1).  Mix and combine well, just set it aside (pic 4).
• Put the water and caster sugar in a heavy-base saucepan over medium-high heat(pic 2). When the syrup start to boil. Place the rest of egg white (50 g) into a mixing bowl, using the whip attachment, whip egg white to the soft peak. When the syrup reaches 118°C (on a thermometer), take if off the heat and let it cool down to 115°C.
• While the mixer is still running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl. Be careful not to pour syrup onto the whip as it might spatter (pic 3).
• Continue mixing until the meringue cool down to slightly above body temperature (50°C) or when the side of the mixing bowl is warm to touch. The whipped egg white would be stiff and glossy (pic 5).

                                                          Pic 5 &6

                                                           Pic 7&8

• Mix a third of whipped egg white into the almond meal mixture and combine them well( pic 6). At this step, you can work the mixture very vigorously to blend the egg white with almond meal mixture. Fold the rest of whipped egg white into the mixture(pic 7) and mix well, yet gently, until the batter is smooth(pic 8). The batter will be thick. It resembles a very thick cake batter, or as many web sites describe it as a magma-like consistency ( it means the thick batter would flow slowly like a magma).

Pic 9&10

Pic 11&12

• Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with 1-cm plain tip (pic 9). Pipe the staggering rows of 1-inch rounds onto baking papers or baking sheets (pic 10).
•  Let the piped shells stand at room temperature for 30 – 60 minutes to let the crust forms. This depends on the room temperature and humidity. When the piped shells are dry to touch without it sticking to your fingers. They are good to go into the oven.
• Preheat the oven to 160°C (fan-force or convection oven, increase the temperature by 20°C if you’re using conventional oven) for at least 15 minutes. Just before baking, turn the temperature down to 150°C and bake the macarons for 15 minutes.
• Lift the baking papers/sheets off the baking tray to the cooling rack and let it completely cool down before removing macarons (it is easier to remove cool macarons off the sheet. They are also less likely to stick to the paper).

• Sandwich cool macarons shell with chilled salted caramel.
• Store macarons in airtight container in the fridge. Macaron will taste better after it is chilled overnight.

Salted caramel filling recipe:

Salted caramel ingredients:

Pic 13&14



Pic 15&16
• 100 g caster sugar
• 165 g thickened cream (minimum 35% fat content)( I used milk and added 30g of butter)
• 15 g salted butter
• 70 g soften salted butter

Making salted caramel filling

• This caramel is done using dry-caramel method where sugar are melted on the medium high heat without any water (pic 14).
• Add 30 g of caster sugar to a heavy-based small saucepan over medium-high heat. Let the sugar melt and shake the pan every now and then to help sugar to melt. When the sugar is 
• melted (pic 15), put another 35 g of sugar into the pan and let it melt. Repeat with the rest of sugar. 
• Leave the sugar caramelised until it turns dark amber(pic 16). Remove the pan from the heat and add 15 g of butter. 
• Add warm thickened cream to the sugar mixture(pic 17). Be careful as the mixture might spatter. Quickly shake the pan to help blending cream and caramelized sugar.
• Put the saucepan back to medium-heat and let it boil until it reaches 108°C(pic 18 &19).
• Remove from heat and pour the mixture into a bowl (pic 20). Cover the mixture surface with cling wrap to prevent the skin forming. Set aside to cool down and won't melt butter in the next stage.

                                                                                                   

   Pic 17&18    

Pic 19&20

• When the sugar mixture is cool, beat butter on medium-high speed until it is light and fluffy (approx. 8 – 10 minutes). Mix the sugar mixture into the butter in two batches.
• Chill the mixture until ready to use to fill macarons.

Macaron with no feet

Chocolate & raspberry macarons