Chocolate Cake with French Buttercream

Here is Lauren's graduation cake. It's two 9" x 13" rectangles with a 9" round (I just happened to have in the freezer) on top.

I got this recipe from Len's mom, but it is very close to the recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa box. It's dark and moist.

Chocolate Cake
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
3/4 - 1 cup cocoa, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
2 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup boiling water
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

• Mix dry ingredients. Add eggs and oil and beat until thoroughly combined. Add boiling water and beat at medium speed for 1-2 minutes. Stir in milk and vanilla; batter will be very thin.
• Pour into greased and floured 9" x 13" pan. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10-15 minutes, then flip out onto cooling rack. Flip again to put the top up.

Notes:

• To make 24 cupcakes, scoop scant 1/3 cup batter into each paper lined cup. Bake 15-20 minutes.
• As I made 4 batches this weekend, I realized what a great cake mix this is. Next time you're making it, fill one or more bags with additional dry ingredients, and you'll save a lot of time (and mess) when baking your next cake!

The icing: I adapted this recipe from one in a Wilton wedding cake book. It's rich rather than super-sweet, and soft rather than stiff. I had to tweak and tweak to get the saltiness right (none made it too bland), which is why there are two kinds of butter.

French Buttercream (makes about 2 cups)
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup milk (any fat level)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup (1 stick) regular butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

• Place sugar, flour, and salt in saucepan and mix thoroughly; stir in milk. Cook over medium heat and stir constantly (I use a whisk.) until bubbling and very thick. Remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Cool to room temperature.
• Turn mixer to low speed and add butter in chunks (about 1 Tbsp each). Add vanilla and beat at medium-high speed until smooth. You'll have to beat for a long time; it will look curdled and you'll think it's never going to get smooth.
• Chill icing for a few minutes before decorating (I spread it at room temp.). Iced cake must be refrigerated until a few hours before serving time.

Notes:

• Even when the icing looks smooth there may be small bits of butter in it. You can't tell by looking, so put a little sample on your tongue to feel for creaminess.
• This icing is ivory rather than white. It does not take food coloring well (curdles/streaks), so I use a powdered sugar icing for decorating.
• This icing is also very soft at room temperature; it's mostly butter. It's hard to keep a well defined shape when decorating because of the heat of your hand, so I use it for dots or lines rather than shells.
• Because it's mostly butter, the icing is firm at refrigerator temperature. This is handy for covering--just chill for a little while and then the cake can be covered with plastic wrap without muss. You must take the cake out of the fridge about two hours before serving or you'll think you're eating butter rather than buttercream.
• Leftover icing can be frozen. Transfer to the fridge before using. Either add with the butter into a new batch or just rebeat your leftover by itself. It will curdle even worse than a fresh batch, but will eventually be fluffy and smooth. All that rebeating will make it pretty warm, too.

Decorating notes:

The graduate silhouette is made from store-bought fondant (white). I kneaded in food coloring (wearing gloves!), then rolled it out and cut with a sharp knife. I found the pattern online, printed it, traced onto waxed paper, and cut it out before laying on the fondant. The fondant is easy to work with, and edible, if not actually tasty. The children called it edible play-dough.

The squiggles are called "Cornelli Lace". I think this is the first time I've used a monochromatic scheme--usually it's pink over yellow or blue over white, etc. I used a relatively large (#5) round tip for this cake. Just pipe strings of icing, wiggling up, down, and around. Make sure the strings never touch or cross each other. Simple but slow. Since this is done with the French buttercream, warming was a potential problem. I tried to keep just a small amount of icing in the bag so I could frequently add cooler blobs.

The blue icing used for writing and the shell border was ordinary powdered sugar frosting.