chocolate cake with praline frosting

Are you looking for a dessert for New Years Eve? Or for any other time? This cake is fancy enough for a big celebration, but it's also appropriate pretty much any time. Rich chocolate cake layers with fluffy, caramelized, toasty, nutty praline, offset with a wee bit of salt. 

This cake is how you should be ending 2017. 

Lately I have been using ermine frosting more than Italian or Swiss meringue buttercream. It has a few different names, boiled milk frosting, flour buttercream...it's just about the weirdest frosting I have ever made, and I think it's also the best. It starts with a flour and milk mixture, cooked up until thick and puddingy. It is flabby and weird looking. It seems like it would make an effective wallpaper paste. It does not seem like it will become a delicious, fluffy, light-yet-rich frosting. 

But then you cool the milk goop, and whip up some butter and sugar and incorporate the strange goo and it's just magical. The stodgy flour mess becomes so unbelievably fluffy and light, it's utterly transmogrified. You have to try this frosting, it will win you over. Promise.

chocolate cake: 

adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

Note: this makes about twice the cake batter you will need. You can either make a huge cake, or freeze the extra for later. 

• 3/4 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 1/4 cups hot water

• 2/3 cup sour cream

• 2 2/3cups all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening

• 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

• 3 large eggs, at room temperature

• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Heat oven to 325°F. Prepare 3 6 inch cake pans, either butter or line with parchment. Combine sour cream, hot water and coco in a small bowl, mixing well. 

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. In a stand mixer, beat butter and shortening on medium speed until fluffy. Add sugars and beat for another 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between eggs. 

Alternating, add flour and coco mixtures in three additions each. Mix on low until well combined. Using about half the batter, divide evenly between prepared pans. 

Bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Set cakes aside to cool. 

praline paste:

adapted from Joe Pastry

• 1 cup plus two tablespoons granulated sugar

• 1/4 cup water

• 1 cup blanched almonds

• 1 cup hazelnuts

• big pinch flaky salt

Toast nuts in a pan over medium-low heat, shaking them frequently. When they are toasty-coloured and fragrant, remove from heat and place nuts on a parchment lined baking sheet. 

Melt sugar and water together in a small pan, swirling until it is a medium amber colour. Pour over the nuts. Let cool and smash up into rubble. Blitz in a food processor with the salt, if you have a mini food processor it will be a bit easier. It takes quite a while to get the praline to form a paste;  keep on pushing the mix down into the bottom and blending until it stops looking sandy and forms a slightly oily paste. Be patient, it will work eventually. 

praline ermine frosting:

adapted from Martha Stewart

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 1 cup whole milk

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• Pinch of salt

• 2 sticks butter, room temperature

• 1 cup sugar

• 3-4 tbs praline paste

Combine milk and flour in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir continually until the mixture thickens to a pudding-like consistency. Let cool completely. 

In a stand mixer, whip butter and sugar for about 2 minutes, until pale and fluffy. Add in milk mixture and beat until the mixture is very light and fluffy. Add praline paste and beat until well incorprated. 

Note: If the flour mixture or butter are slightly too cold the frosting may not want to come together and stay kind of grainy and wet looking. I solved this by passing a blowtorch with a low flame rapidly around the side of my metal (not glass!) mixing bowl, while whipping on high. If you don't have a blowtorch, I think a hairdryer on hot or a very hot towel wrapped around the base of the bowl would work too. You want to use the heat just until you see the mixture come together and become visibly fluffy. Don't keep the heat on after or you could melt the butter too much. 

assemble: 

Trim cakes as required to flatten the tops.

Place one cake layer on a 6" cake board if you have it, or a flat plate or cake stand. Cover cake with a generous layer of frosting. Sandwich next cake layer on top and frost, repeat with the final layer. Chill the cake to set the frosting in the layers. Put a couple skewers through the cake if the layers are sliding around. 

Frost the chilled cake quickly all over with an offset spatula, making sure to cover all exposed cake. Adding more frosting as you go, use an offset spatula, or bench scraper to tidy up and give the cake some nice clean angles. Sprinkle a few chopped toasted hazelnuts around the top of the cake. 

Practice saying "Yes I made the praline myself." with just the right amount of humility and a slight glow of pride. Your guests are so impressed.

Amaretti and raspberry ombre cake

Amaretti and raspberry cake

When I was deciding what cake to make for my friend's birthday last week I wanted something a little lighter, a little less intense. I'm still feeling aftershocks from Christmas overindulgence. I wouldn't describe this cake as light exactly, but the fruit does help offset the richness a little. 

I was try to replicate the flavour of amaretti cookies, which have a strong, slightly bitter almond flavour. Use a really good quality almond extract, some of the cheaper (artificial) almond extracts are too wimpy and bland.

Almond and vanilla cake

adapted from

Baked

2 1/2 cups cake flour

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tbs baking powder

1tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

1 3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract 

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups ice water

3 egg whites

Mix flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside. Cream together the  butter and the shortening. Add the sugar and the vanilla and beat until fluffy. Add the egg and just combine. Turn the mixer to low and add the flour mixture and water in turns. Scrape the bowl to ensure everything is mixed properly.

In a clean bowl, beat the eggs until soft peaks form. Gently fold egg whites into the batter until just combined. 

Divide batter between two 6 inch cake pans lined with parchment (I make a few cupcakes with any leftover batter) and bake at 325 degrees F for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake come to room temperature then c

ut into very thin layers.

 Freeze cake layers, wrapped well in cling wrap.

Amarretti frosting

adapted from smitten kitchen

1 1/2 cups sugar

6 egg whites

2 1/3 cups butter

1/2 vanilla bean innards

1 tsp almond extract

.

In a very clean, dry, heat proof bowl, whisk together egg whites and sugar. Set bowl over a large saucepan of simmering water, whisking constantly. When the sugar granules dissolve, remove the pan from the heat and wipe the water from the bottom of the bowl. Pour egg mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer whip the eggs until they about double in size. Add the butter, a little at a time. The mixture will very likely break and start to look like a scrambled leaky mess. Keep whipping, it should come back together.

Raspberry filling 

1 cup raspberry jam

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

juice of one lemon

a little water

Put everything into a saucepan and cook on medium heat. Mash the raspberries a little so they are still a little chunky. Let cool.

ombre frosting

Test pattern: I like to practice new frosting designs

 on a piece of parchment before I try it on a cake.

Assembly

Spread a layer of raspberry filling onto a cake layer, top with another cake layer spread with frosting. Alternate cake layers with either filling until you run out of cake layers. Chill cake for 30 minutes.

Frost the cake with a thin quick layer of frosting to seal in the crumbs. Don't worry about making this layer too pretty. Chill again for 30 minutes.

Put about 1/3 cup frosting  in a small bowl, add 1-2 drops red food colouring mix well. Repeat with more frosting, adding a little more colouring each time. You want to end up with three different shades of pink to red. Pipe a line of the darkest colour frosting around the bottom of the cake, smooth with an offset spatula. Work your way up the cake, adding lighter shades of frosting as you move up. Blend the edges between the different colours to give a softer fade. Use remaining white frosting to touch up the top of the cake.