Cake #4: Chocolate Strawberry
Alice asked for a chocolate cake with berries and cream cheese frosting for her birthday, and this is what I produced. It's another layer cake, and I think it may be about time to expand my repertoire (which means buying some new equipment, which is partially why I haven't done so yet).
The base of this is the chocolate layer cake from Best Recipes. I rather liked this one, sort of light and fluffy where King Aurthur's devil's food cake was denser. I'll probably lean in this direction for future layer cakes.
The filling was a strawberry filling, taken from Best Recipes from the Strawberry Cheesecake topping. I tried to thicken it a bit, but it really wasn't thick enough for my purpose. Though it might have gone better had I left it in the fridge to cool for longer than I did (I was in a bit of a rush for this part).
The frosting came out of King Arthur, a very nice spreadable cream cheese frosting. I used about a third of the confectioner's sugar it asked for, though. Came out pretty well, too.
The decorations are a strawberry, blueberries, edible flowers, and a frozen grape. This didn't turn out too badly, but I will admit that in general I've not given much thought to the presentation layer of my cakes. I think this is something I'll have to give some thought to.
wendolen has given me a couple of recipes I need to try, which look pretty tasty. I'd also like to try a cheesecake (see earlier note about equipment).
Cake-as-art is still a bit beyond me, possibly because of the art part. But some things I'd like to try at some point include a Beatles theme, turtle/space theme or something appropriately themed.
At some point, I may start throwing 'Eat My Cake' parties. This sounds like a brilliant idea, and requires follow-up at some later date.
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