WeddSplosion IV: The Final Tasting

This is it, ladies and gents – the decision has been made.  The wedding cake flavor of choice is:

Chocolate with Coffee Buttercream!

This is obviously neither of the initially discussed flavors, but that’s okay!  Through multiple trials and errors they have a flavor they love, and I got a butt-load of baking experience.  It’s win-win!

This is a combination of Sweetapolita’s chocolate cake (that I made for Adam’s birthday) and the coffee buttercream I picked up from an older 1970s magazine.  The combination is fantastic, and I think it’s a great choice for their wedding.  It’s not exactly traditional flavors or coloring, but Adam and Emily don’t care.  So from now on it’s my goal to make this cake as good-looking and good-tasting as physically possible.  /fistpump

As the cake tastings have progressed I’ve been trying to incorporate higher-quality ingredients in each recipe.  This includes higher quality butter, Scharffen Berger chocolate, organic eggs and the like.  To kind of cap that all off, this chocolate cake I made with Valrhona cocoa powder, something I spotted at Whole Foods.

One thing I love about the Whole Foods near my apartment is that, separate from the “normal” chocolate and candy sections they have in the aisles, there’s a separate table they seem to reserve for über-special chocolate, inexplicably located next to the cheese cases.  Since my trips to Whole Foods are relatively few and far in between I tend to forget that table is there, and then have a surge of excitement when I see it again.

It was on the über-special table that I found the Valrhona chocolate in both bar and cocoa powder form.  Fifteen minutes earlier I’d been excited that I picked up two of the last three canisters of Scharffen Berger cocoa powder, but now I was thinking I should try something new.  I sent to a quick tweet to the chocolate guru herself, Victoria, to get her opinion since I knew absolutely nothing about Valrhona (other than its presence on the table indicating it was indeed, über-special).  Her reply told me that Valrhona is the “gold standard for pantry chefs”, and indicated its high quality, but also high cost.  Unhindered, I picked up a tub and marched off proudly to the checkout (don’t worry Scharffen Berger…I still bought a 10oz bar of 72%.  I still love you).

Oh, and I almost forgot – my homemade vanilla had finally soaked long enough, so I was able to use that in the cake as well – huzzah!

So, the cake.

After some consideration, I decided to cut the cake into three layers instead of my usual two.  I did this for multiple reasons.

First, I wanted to experiment with a different style.  With only two flavors to deal with – chocolate and coffee – experimenting with the “look and feel”, as they say, was something I wanted to try out.

Second, that frosting is effing amazing.  Why wouldn’t you want an extra layer of it in there?

Third, practice.  Practice practice practice.  I want to continue practicing getting nice, level cake slices, especially now that I have an official doo-hickey that makes even slices for me.

My only concern was that Adam and Emily might come back to me and say “Ack, too much coffee flavor!” but if it came down to that I figured I could just cut the design back down to two layers.  Easy peasy.

Luckily for me, they both gave it the double thumbs-up.  And thus ends our search for the perfect wedding cake flavor!

Coming up eventually….learning to tier cake!

For the continuing WedSplosion saga, read here:

• WeddSplosion: Prologue
• WeddSplosion: The First Tasting
• WeddSplosion II: Return of the Cakes
• WeddSplosion III: The Cake of Doom