My son's birthday fell on Friday the 13th...his lucky day or so he says. I wanted to bake him a special cake and was looking through my box of old recipes and found one from mom called, "The Perfect Chocolate Cake." Well, "perfect" caught my attention. I perused the recipe and made sure I had all the ingredients it called for, and let's not forget the cute apron. A baker MUST have a cute apron when making a cake of this magnitude. I proceeded to start this cake on the afternoon of the 13th. We were taking Scooter and his girlfriend, Tracie, out to dinner that evening, so I needed to get it done. Oh, did I mention I was also working through all this? It has been slow, so I thought, good, I won't be bothered much...WRONG...sooooooooo wrong! I was slammed (thank you #13)...I should have known.
Now, when I cook or bake, I do my best to kind of clean up as I go along..really, I do. Not this day. I was on a deadline, had faxes coming in, paperwork to deal with and this huge cake to figure out. Needless to say, powdered sugar was flying all over the kitchen! I had to boil the chocolate mixture and wait for it to cool. Whip the frosting over a bowl of ice (huh?) and bake 3 pans at one time. That made me so nervous.
The cakes had cooled, the frosting done, and the whipped cream filling waiting to be layered between the cakes. The cakes came out the pans just fine and the filling was layered and the cakes didn't slide off(I was holding my breath). The cake was a little lopsided, but not much. I made the mistake of leaving the frosting in the pan sitting in the bowl of ice, so it was not so easy to spread. I let it sit a bit and just whipped it up some more. I did some swirly moves with my knife and also took the back of a spoon to create some peaks. I didn't have anything to garnish it with, so it would have to do. It was 4:45 and I had to hop in the shower and get ready for the kids to arrive and take them out to dinner. It all got done in the nick of time.
After dinner, we came home and cut into that monster and that first bite was so goooood! Very moist, the filling delightful, and the frosting perfect. The chocolate was just right. Not too rich. Add a little vanilla ice cream and let the sugar coma begin!
BTW...that's the birthday boy, Scooter, with his lovely fiance, Tracie!
