My Culinary Trial Room

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Mocha Cake with Mocha Butter Cream Icing

It was my MIL’s birthday last week. We usually order cakes for any big days. But after my semi-successful attempt at baking a complete Black forest cake for my parents’ anniversary A’s confidence in me has increased and he placed an order WITH ME…

And the order was Any flavored cake but fully frosted. I always love chocoffee and had always wanted to implement that in a cake and grabbed this chance. My favorite flavor in a cake and in a butter cream. This is my first attempt in whipping butter cream and for a first hander, I would say it came out well. We gave this as a surprise to MIL and she was really happy to see the love that we had for her transformed into a lovely cake.

~*What U Need*~

For the Mocha Cake
All purpose flour – 1 ¼ cup
Baking soda – ½ tsp
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Sugar – 1 cup
Butter – 1 stick / ½ cup
Large Egg – 1
Instant coffee powder / granules – 1 tbsp
Unsweetened Cocoa powder – 1 ½ tbsp
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp
Buttermilk – ½ cup
Salt – a pinch
Boiling water – 1 tbsp

For the Mocha Butter cream Frosting / Icing
Instant coffee powder – 1 tsp
Unsweetened Cocoa powder – ½ tbsp
Milk – 1 tbsp
Butter(at room temperature/softened) – 1 stick / ½ cup
Vanilla extract – ½ tsp
Icing sugar/Super fine powdered sugar – 1 cup
Salt – a pinch (optional)

For Decoration
Chocolate vermicelli / sprinkles – ½ cup
Gems / M&M’s – as needed

Things for Decoration
Piping bag with Star nozzle

How I made it:

Mocha Cake:
Preheat oven to 350º F / 180 C. Grease and line your baking pan with wax paper
Sieve flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt together thrice.
Dissolve the coffee granules in the boiling water without any lumps.
Beat together the butter and sugar till creamy.
Add the eggs and beat again till creamy.
To this wet mixture, add the vanilla extract and combine well.
Fold in the flour+cocoa mixture and the buttermilk in alternate batches. Do not over work on this.
Pour into the greased pan.

Bake for 35 mins or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Run knife around edges of cakes. Invert onto wire racks; remove wax paper. Cool completely.

Mocha butter-cream frosting:
Dissolve instant coffee granules and cocoa powder in milk without any lumps
Beat together butter, vanilla extract and salt in large mixer bowl for 3 minutes.
Beat in cocoa-coffee mixture until blended. Scrap down the sides in between.
Gradually beat in powdered sugar until light and fluffy.

Assembling the cake:
Using a serrated knife, cut the cake into two equal halves longitudinally. Level the top of the cake if it is too puffed up.
Mount the bottom half of the cake on a cake pedestal / cake board. Spread Mocha butter cream on it till desired thickness.
Place the second half on top of this, dump butter cream and cover the cake completely with the cream. Smooth it out with a spatula or knife dipped in chilled water.
Scoop out the excess cream into a piping bag fitted with star nozzle and decorate the sides of the cake

Decorate the top with chocolate sprinkles and Gems / M&M’s.

Tip:
Alter the quantity between the cocoa powder and coffee granules to get desired mocha effect. The mentioned quantity was knock-on for us. The coffee flavor was not too strong and complimented the chocolate flavor well.
You can replace the cocoa powder used for Butter cream icing with 1 tbsp of melted dark chocolate
If you feel that the butter cream is too runny, beat in more sugar till spreading consistency. If too thick then add drops of milk gradually.