This Food Rocks!

"Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation." Psalm 95:1

Sunday was my grand-son's birthday, and we had the birthday dinner at our house. Riley was a wonderful help, tidying up the kitchen and back room and vacuming. Christian had requested barbecued chateaubriand, french fries, green beans, and chocolate cake. I also made fresh bread. I set the table with a camo table clothe and simple white dishes.

The cake is a family tradition. I've been making it for 20 years. I can't believe it's been that long! Because we were only 10 for dinner I made only half of the cake. Actually today Christian was a bit disappointed to find out that the cake was finished. But anyway, when I make the cake I have to start early.


Though it is simple, it takes time. The cake layers have to cool. The genache filling has to be very hard before I can whip it up to go between the layers. Then when the genache is on, the cake has to be in the refrigerator for an hour of two before I add the whipped cream. You can find the recipe here on my other blog, where there are more how to pictures.

Or, here it is:


Half The Perfect Chocolate Cake

Cake:

1/2 cup cocoa, best quality (40 gr)
1 cups boiling water

1 1/4 cups flour (5 1/2 oz)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup butter
11/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 tsp vanilla

Chocolate Butter Cream:

3/4 cup butter
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 1/2 oz semi-sweet chocolate
(or any kind except white, which isn’t chocolate)

scant 2 cups icing sugar (7.5 oz)


Whipped Cream Frosting:

1 2/3 cups heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3-4 tablespoons sugar
 


Cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease, paper, grease and flour three 7 inch round cake pans. Stir together the cocoa and boiling water. Set aside to cool. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder, set aside.


In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the cooled cocoa mixture. Mix only until combined. Divide evenly between the three prepared pans, and spread the batter out flat.


Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean, and the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. Cool cakes on a wire rack.


Chocolate Butter Cream: In a large microwavable bowl, put the semi-sweet chocolate, butter and cream, and place in microwave for about 2 minutes. The reason for the large bowl is to prevent it going over the top and then you’ve lost part of the ingredients and that’s a bummer. After taking out of microwave stir until everything looks melted and well mixed. If not so, put back in microwave for a little bit. When well mixed, add to the icing sugar in an electric mixing bowl and continue to whip until very smooth. It will be runny looking. Just leave the beaters in the mixture, cover with plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator or freezer until very solid, but not frozen.

When ready to assemble the cake, put the filling back in the mixer and with a good grip on the bowl, whip until very smooth and spreadable. The mixture will turn from dark brown, to a very pale brown.

I put the butter cream mixture between the layers of the cake and the put a very light coating all over the cake and put the cake into the refrigerator until ready to be served. There will probably be left-over butter cream. It is very good between graham crackers.


Whipped Cream Frosting: Put the whipping cream into an electric mixing bowl, add the beaters and put into the freezer for about 15 minutes. Remove from freezer and beat, adding the vanilla and sugar. Make the cream stiff, but not butter.

Get the cake out of the refrigerator and put most of the cream all over the cake, reserving some for piping however you please.

note: For this cake I added a heaping tablespoon of cocoa to the cream to make it look like one of the colors in the camo tablecloth.



When we all sat down to dinner Christian placed his walkie talkie in the middle of the table. Not long after we had started eating he picked up the other walkie talkie and said, "This food rocks!" That was so nice to hear. One always wants their grand-children to like their cooking. For years he was a picky eater and wouldn't eat what I cooked. But I think now he likes my cooking.

I made the French fries from scratch, but they were the one element that kept dinner from being on time. Everyone really liked them, but next time I am going to cut them by hand, instead of using the French fry cutting contraptions. I'll cut them thinner so they will cook faster. Also, I think it would be nice to have French fries that are flat round disks. There are lots of possibilities.

In the end I put cocoa in the whipped cream and it made it one of the colors in the camo table clothe. This is a picture of Christian all ready to blow out the candles. The really funny thing was that with all that effort only one candle went out. With a lot less effort he then blew them all out.