Noel and I have been doing a lot of thinking about this space and what we want it to be (and clearly not a lot of writing about it). As I was making a birthday cake for my little girl this last week something struck me. One of my favorite websites for cakes is Annie’s Eats and one of her policies is that when she makes birthday cakes she “doesn’t photograph the sliced cake [since] parties are about the birthday honoree, not the perfect photo!” I love that sentiment. We aren’t famous food bloggers or anything (yet), but we already feel the pressure to make beautiful, Pinterest-worthy dishes. While, I’ve loved stepping up my game on food presentation and improving my photography skills (with a humble point and shoot nonetheless) it can be tough to keep any sort of schedule about it. Most days the very act of getting dinner on the table is a miracle void of any thought for pictures, presentation, or any other sort of fanfare. I greatly admire colleagues that make this happen, but for us, avoiding a mutiny is a higher priority. This isn’t to say we aren’t going to blog about recipes, we are and I have a few in mind that I’m itching to share, but we’re going to diversify a bit as we try to enjoy this crazy ride of life. Now for a cake review.
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake
This recipe is from Annie’s Eats. Our three-year-old princess (I don’t throw that word around lightly) chose it as her birthday cake. The entire week leading up to her birthday she would mention at least once a day, “My birthday is next. I’m going to have a chocolate strawberry cake.” Clearly there was a lot of build up. The cake itself wasn’t too tricky to make. The finished product was not as moist as I would have liked, but I can’t be sure if that was a fault of the recipe or something gone amiss with my altitude alterations. The chocolate flavor was quite intense, even a bit intense for Noel who prefers his chocolate to be at least 60% cacao. The frosting is tedious for a frosting, but does look very pretty. This is the second swiss merengue buttercream I’ve made and I’ve officially decided I prefer plain old buttercream. Perhaps it’s less fancy, but I prefer the taste and the ease of it. The finished cake was beautiful, probably in the top three prettiest cakes I’ve ever made. It was well received by our little family, but everyone struggled to finish their little slices as the flavor was quite rich. While I love the idea of a chocolate covered strawberry cake, if I were to do it again I would try a different chocolate cake base and use a strawberry buttercream instead. So, basically I guess I would be making a different cake, but thank Annie for the inspiration.
Alterations: Adjusted for altitude and skipped the coffee.
Recommendation: I would only recommend this cake if you were looking for a very rich cake and have a crowd of people to help you eat it.
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