This week is Devils Food White Out Cake. I think most everyone was excited to see the cover cake pick of Baking.
I made this cake a few weeks ago for a family party and overall it was a success. Though my cake does not look quite like the picture on the cover.:-/ I won’t fret too much over that though, since we all know those food photographers have some trickery up their sleeve. However, I know I will see some beautiful yet fully edible cakes from my fellow bakers today.
As the name of the cake proclaims, this was a chocolate devils food cake. Here is the cake batter in all its chocolaty glory.
Here are the cakes fully baked.
Now, these are cakes 1 and 2 out of 4 total cakes. Yes, 4 cakes. My first two cakes did not rise to the height that I expected. Since I was making this for more than just myself and hubby, I wanted it to look good as well as be enough to feed everyone. So I made 2 more cakes that rose perfectly. I can’t say what the difference was because I made it on the same day with all the same ingredients. Perhaps I messed up the measurement of the leavening agent in the first batch. Subsequently, I did see on the P&Q that some people had the same problem. Oh well, more cake, there are worse things.
Since I had 4 cakes I decided not to cut them in half and just use a whole cake as a layer. He leveled off the tops of each of the cakes, and we used the crumbs from that for the outside. They seemed a little too moist so we spread them out on a cookie sheet and toasted them in the oven for a few minutes.
Next came the frosting, which I have no process photos for. It was a marshmallow frosting and it was absolutely delicious. It did take a while to come up to temperature and I did not have my candy thermometer so I had to pull it off the heat based on texture. However, it came out great. I know some other bakers made other types of frosting and some on the P&Q said they did not like this frosting. Well, I am a fan and I am sure I will find an occasion to make this frosting again.
I did not have any problem with deflating whilst assembling.
I was worried that I would not have enough frosting since I had more and thicker cake layers than called for. I did not use as much frosting in between the layers as I had ideally wanted, which is evident in the pictures.
And here it is.
I was not one hundred percent pleased with the way the cake came out. However, this is the first time I have made a layer cake like this. So I’ll pat myself on the back for a good first effort. The cake did taste great, my only complaints were that it was a little too dense because the layers were so thick and the frosting to cake ratio was a little off.
I would make this again, but I would not go through the hassle of the layer cake. I would love to make this batter into one whole cake or some cupcakes and use the marshmallow frosting.