All Time Favorite Chocolate Cake

I can't fathom someone who would hate chocolate. What is there not to like, right? In any forms, when we say chocolate it is no doubt good. Last Valentines Day, I wanted to celebrate it by impressing my mother. Basically that what's in my mind when I decided to make A Chocolate Cake. So for the second time and on the second month of the year, I baked my second cake. Just in case you missed it, I did my first bake of cake in Red Velvet. 

Baking a Chocolate Cake for me is a lot tricky than others. Maybe because I have high standards on my chocolate cake that it carried over on what I plan to do. If you will ask what's my definition of a good one here's the list.

• delicately moist
• slightly bitter but not overpowering taste of chocolate
• melts in your mouth softness/velvety

 I set these three as guidelines also of what I have in mind. Well at least somewhat similar to this because it's just my second time of baking cakes. Though I have a few let's say "tricks" playing in my head to make this kinda look original even though I just relied on an easy recipe online. Again, what I always use as a basis when looking for a recipe is the availability of my ingredients. What is that I have around the kitchen. I also bear in mind those who are thinking of baking a chocolate cake but are intimidated of what they see on Google. Upon searching, finally I found my  Chocolate Cake Recipe. Now, there's a substitute in case you don't want to put just a plain hot water. Coffee!  Some of you might wonder why but in this case if you want to enhance the flavor of Chocolate in your Chocolate Cake, Coffee is the answer. So I put a tablespoon in my 1 cup of boiling water. Why boiling water? This effect is made to bloom the cocoa and release the flavor. Imagine now how this cake will turn out? UH-HMMM... The recipe calls for two round pans, since I only have one I made use of the rectangular instead for the second layer.

Let's now go with the icing. Since we are an all time fan of Chocolat and I always love their ganache icing and I still have a block of chocolate sitting in my fridge... It's time to pah-ty!

My First Easy to Bake Red Velvet Cake

I've been so vocal on my love for baking. Everything right now is surreal for me who didn't really had a sit down lecture on the 101's. It's just purely Google and YouTube who helped me reached my aspirations. I even thought of documenting everything and putting it on a blog. I just felt sorry that I wasn't able to give a thorough concentration on my blog for the past years let alone keep up with my entries. Oh how  I missed writing about my baking.. very much! I see that my last post was still of 2015. Two years!! How could I neglect documenting my baking. Good thing is that I saved pictures and that I preserved the stories behind it. Come year 2017, I decided to resurrect everything and put fuel to the passion.
Those years of blogging hiatus that I got to experienced a lot of misses and fails on my baking. I must admit that I'm more on the experimental. If I have to put one thing about being a chef in mind ( and in heart) is that the ability to create new recipes. And by this, you shouldn't be afraid of  going out of your comfort zone or thinking out of the box. Thus this mindset I believe is whats liable on the makings of  fusions and other hybrids such as Cronuts just to name a few. I have done many experimentations to be honest. It helped me on knowing my craft more and that the fulfillment of producing a recipe that is you. Thus in every baking or cooking tasks that I do, there's a little story behind which all the more makes everything exciting and worth sharing ( and worth blogging).
I'm really fond of creating something out "of what is left in the cupboard" if you know what I mean. This one particular story was just of January 14 year of 2017, for my 'lil s brother's birthday ( obviously he isn't lil anymore at the age of 27) In the family, it already became a tradition to cook anything pasta or noodles for it symbolizes long life. Prior to this, I already thought of recreating the pasta that I ate a few nights before from Mary Grace. I decided Spaghetti with Tomatoes and Basil, my version of Yellow Cab's Charlie Chan and hesitantly Red Velvet Cake. Why with the hesitation? Because honestly what I always do were purely cookies. I've done Brazo de Mercedez but no major cakes yet so this is a first and I'm quite nervous for the outcome. I know, I shouldn't be doing my brother's birthday as a testing stint for this. I just can't imagine if he'll ever forgive me if this has gone wrong.

 First on the agenda is to look for an easy fail-proof  recipe for the cake. I got mine at All Recipes UK. I just find conversion really a major issue because you can't be wrong or else everything will be a mess. You see I have to convert the grams into cups, and we are talking about precision here.There's always a confusion whenever I do this which rattles me. So most of these ingredients were readily available and whats left from our Christmas Cookie Business Special ( I just made the title so it'll sound catchy, lol) which I intend to tell you also, maybe next time.
At that time I used a substitute for Cream Cheese as my icing. If you are from the Philippines I know you are aware of Arla. Though this is just a Cheese Spread but the taste and consistency could already pass. I find that I might be needing quite a few Cream Cheese but I'm restricted of time and budget so I opt for this. I also didn't follow the indicated recipe for the icing but used the basic cream cheese + confectioner sugar instead. Another reason is that I don't have any white chocolate available.

 It's a tad runny though but usually this kind of frosting is not that thick. I suggest that you keep it in the fridge for at least 30 mins and it'll help settle the consistency. 

Originally the recipe calls for three 20cm round pans but instead I used one 8"round pan and baked it for 60 min. I also didn't have a cake stand to do the icing procedure. Again, I improvised and used the round pan turn it upside down and decorate. I think my brother is forgiving on that day or he just loved me or the cake? You tell?

This is only the first of many to come, I hope that you will stay around and be a witness to my undying baking expedition. Till then