Sunday, January 4, 2015

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.
זכר לחורבן...








17 comments:

  1. Oh no Mendy! I'm sad to see what happened to the whipped cream. Glad to hear it still tasted good. And I'm happy to see the cake baked well in 2 pans (maybe too well since it overflows).

    Always love your mise-en-place shot :).

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  2. very nice Mendy!! and like Jenn, Lois say that taste matters....

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    1. Mendy ,I did not use the caramel cream, read the blog again.

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  3. The whipped cream is so sensitive! I almost lost mine too. It turns in a matter of seconds. Take heart. I'd say it tasted perfect.

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  4. Mendy: I had serious whipped cream issues as well! I didn't know if I was making butter, or if it was turning into a completely different substance all together or what. Take a look at my blog for the whole tale! One of my tasters suggested that the cake would be great as a layer cake. You may be on to something! It sure tastes great, though, doesn't it?

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  5. Oh dear, sorry to see your cream has seized too! Mine definitely was from over-beating cos when i added my caramel, the caramel hardened and I had to keep whipping it from being lumpy! And by the time it managed to melt into the whipped cream, my whipped cream was grainy! But glad that it still tasted good and your cake still looked wonderful! EZ-man is a handsome young boy now!

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  6. Very impressive to stay the course! It all turned out well in the end. I can't believe you managed to be around all this deliciousness fasting. That is truly remarkable.

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  7. I can't believe how calm you are about half of your cake exploding and the whipped cream turning into some viscous substance. This says a lot about your emotional maturity (and I'm afraid it says a lot about mine too).
    Congratulations--hope everyone loved it!

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  8. well, despite all your mishaps your finished cake looks delicious, and i'm glad it tasted delicious as well. i'm with marie, i would have lost my cool too many times to count!

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  9. Oh ya, I forgot to add that I like that you make your ganache on top of a hot oven. LOL! How clever!

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  10. Great Mendy. I thought this cake was so good that even kitchen mishaps can't hurt it

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  11. My whipped cream had the same disaster, but I did not have the emotional maturity to double boil it. I just whipped some new cream and added a bit of the sludge for flavor. No one has so far complained.

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  12. Way to improvise on the whipped cream separation! Your cakes look so moist and delicious and I like the layer of ganache in the middle.

    http://bakedtoorder.blogspot.com/2015/01/roses-alpha-bakers-chocolate-cuddle-cake.html

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  13. you put them back in to finish baking after you clean up the cake explosion - lol! I had the same thing happen to my whipped cream so I started over. I'm going to remelt the curdled batch, then cool the mix and church it into ice cream. Don't know what the texture will turn out like, but I know it will taste good. Have a great week.

    Patricia @ ButterYum
    http://www.butteryum.org/roses-alpha-bakers/2014/12/21/tbb-chocolate-cuddle-cake

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  14. The texture and taste is all that matters!! I too like to use Kolatin gelatin (but skipped it this time).

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  15. No matter what, it still looks good.

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