Cake and Waterfalls

Still, whenever I think of my dear friends and the life we left behind, it helps to remember that we had one last glorious night of culinary creativity and camaraderie and communion.

And cake.

Happy First Week of Advent, dear ones!

P.S. In case you desire to share in this epic cake-ness, I thought I would provide a map for your journey. Call it an early Christmas present. 🙂

I used this recipe from Taste of Home as my base.

Then, as I am rarely content to follow a recipe to the letter, I made some modifications.

~ I only have two cake pans, so I cut off a third from each ingredient to make a two-layer cake, rather than than a three-layer cake as pictured. Fortunately, these cakes rise so much that I was able to cut each one in half lengthwise, so I ended up with a sumptuous four-layer cake! The modified list of ingredients goes like this:

• ⅔ cup (5 ⅓ tbsps) butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar (I know that’s less than ⅔ of the original recipe, but I tend to use less sugar than any recipe calls for, and all my baked goods still turn out delicious)
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsps vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup baking cocoa
• 2 tsps baking soda
• almost ½ tsp of salt (if you want to be really picky and figure out how much ⅔ of ½ a tsp is, be my guest)
• 1 cup brewed coffee (cold; make it in the morning and then leave it in the fridge until you make the cake) – I used decaf (make an extra cup for the frosting and ganache – see below!)
• 1 cup Greek yogurt (I know the recipe says sour cream, but I use plain nonfat Greek yogurt in almost every meal and almost every dish ever)

~ I added ½ cup (ish) chocolate chips, melted, into the cake batter (during the final stages) for more chocolatey moistness.

~ Frosting: I did my own thing. Disregard the recipe’s posted frosting and make this instead, if you are feeling adventurous:

• Before you even start making the cake, take two 8 oz bars of cream cheese and 1/2 stick (¼ cup) of butter out of the fridge and let them come to room temperature slowly.
• While the cake is in the oven, beat the butter and cream cheese together with ½ cup of sugar until fluffy and creamy. (You can use brown sugar if you don’t mind the frosting being a little lumpy. With this cake, it really doesn’t matter, since you don’t see this frosting much anyway.)
• Pour in ½ cup of brewed coffee, cold (see above) and beat like thunder.
• Pour in as much vanilla as you desire. I get rather happy with vanilla, so it was probably in excess of 2 tsps; but, vanilla is expensive, and a little goes a long way. Use your best judgment.
• Beat, beat, beat until the consistency is spreadable. Add more sugar or butter if the coffee makes the frosting too wet and runny. Put in fridge to set.

~ Once the cakes are baked and cooled, cut them in half lengthwise so you have four layers.

• Put one layer on a plate. Spread with approximately ¼ of the frosting.
• Set a layer on top, and spread with frosting.
• Repeat with the remaining two layers.
• Be generous. Lavish that cake with creamy, coffee-ish love. If you have any frosting leftover when you finish, you’ve done something wrong.
• Put the cake in the fridge to set and get to know itself a bit.

~ Here’s where I went really off the rails. I had looked at several mocha cake recipes, and some of them had a decadent mocha drizzle on top. I decided I wanted to whip up a quick ganache-type thing and pour it all over the cake. So I did.

• Melt ¼ cup (ish) of chocolate chips.
• Stir in the remaining ½ cup coffee. Stir, stir, stir. Pour in a bit of half-&-half (or milk, or cream, or whatever you have) and stir, stir, stir. If it’s lumpy and weird, you can reheat it briefly and keep stirring. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
• Put your sort-of-ganache in the fridge to chill and set a bit.

~ Just before you’re ready to serve the cake, pour the ganache-y substance over it. Make sure you’ve chosen a plate that can hold such an overflow of deliciousness. (NOTE: You can also anoint the cake thus ahead of time and put it back in the fridge, letting the ganache set and make more intimate acquaintance with the cake before serving. I have made this cake twice, and I’ve done it both ways. It’s turned out beautifully both times.)