Greenstein's Bakery - BB - Chocolate Cuddle Cake

 ב''ה

This fantastic chocolate cake rivals my cousin Leahs', even with the whipped-cream mishap.

Mis en place:

The 'Ez-man' was with me for moral support.

First make the ganache on top a hot toaster.

Added some Sabra liquor for flavor.

The cake batter.

I doubled the recipe as I do not have a dairy spring-form. I do have dairy cake pans, however. The thing about having a kosher-kitchen is that you have to have two sets of everything, one for meat and one for dairy (and sometimes one for parve.) Each new kitchen item must be placed by the proverbial 'sorting hat' into its 'meat' or 'dairy' home.

I made this on a fast day (10th of Tevet), so no tasting and I had Yirmia on my mind...

 'וּבַבּוֹר אֵין-מַיִם כִּי אִם-טִיט, וַיִּטְבַּע יִרְמְיָהוּ בַּטִּיט...'

'In the pit there was no water, only mud, and Yermiyahu sunk into the mud.'
Jer 38:6

Mix, mix.

Haven't beaten egg-whites in while. :)

Thoughts swirl in a malaise of meaning...

The pans were pretty full.

Toaster shot. The bottom rack bakes slower than the top so I have to move it for a few minutes after the top cake is done.

Or, in this case, you put them back in to finish baking after you clean up the cake explosion. :)

The bottom cake did not have enough room to rise.

This cake was not so easy to cut into perfect rounds.

So... it ended up looking a bit 'heimish'.

Making the lovely chocolate caramel. This cake seems to have a lot of steps. I read ahead and tried to pre-empt the needed ingredients for the next stage. The chocolate for the caramel was supposed to cool down so I did it early in the game. 

First mistake: I poured the caramel in the whipped-cream while it was still hot. Oops! No biggie. I stuck it in the fridge and re-whipped after cooled.

Now it looked good. Second, and more serious mistake: Put in the Kolatin (kosher gelatin) while it was too hot. I knew it had to still be warm but I guess for this recipe it needs to be warm enough to not congeal and cool enough to not ruin the cold whipped-cream.

Oy vey! It went to this...

…then this:

I stopped and looked online for a solution. It seems that I might be able to melt it down on a double-boiler, cool and re-whip. It almost worked too. I forgot to whip it by hand and went just a bit too far. 

No salvaging it now. It still tasted fantastic, still the star of the show, but the 'whipped' consistency was ruined.

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