Chocolate Ridiculous Cake

Dennis and I were invited to a dinner party at Jean & Romauldo’s house (from Church) on Saturday and I brought this cake for dessert.  I call it Chocolate Ridiculous Cake b/c I have a feeling I’m going to be making a lot of ridiculous cakes in my lifetime and I needed a qualifier, chocolate in this case, to specify which kind of ridiculousness I produced.  This one’s ridiculousness is two-fold: the amount of time it took me to make it and the sensory overload you experience when you take a bite. 

I used Marina’s recipe (thanks, girl!) for Deep Dark Chocolate Cake, torted the layers with butterscotch buttercream, iced the whole thing with velvet milk chocolate buttercream, pressed toffee bits into the sides, and accented it with dark chocolate and butterscotch buttercream & dark chocolate dipped toasted pecans and Heath bar quarters.

I do have to admit that it could have been better (at least to my cake connoisseur tastes–I heard nothing but compliments but I’m a perfectionist).  The cake has such a powerful chocolate flavor that the mild chocolate of the buttercream sort of lost the competition in identifying itself on my palate.  It was excellent, but I think it would have been better if I would have used a traditional (chocolatier) recipe for chocolate frosting.

My frosting takes a ridiculous (there’s that word again) amount of time to make, especially when compared with the ease of mixing together a traditional powdered sugar and butter frosting.  I prefer the velvety texture of classic buttercreams made with a sort of candy base.  You boil sugar and corn syrup, then beat egg yolks into the hot mixture until cooled, then beat in butter and flavorings (such as melted and cooled chocolate).  It is a lot of work but if I have the time, I try to do use this method b/c it’s worth it.  In this case however, I think it would have been worth it to save myself the time!

Chocolate Ridiculous Cake

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake
Neoclassic Buttercream
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1 bag Heath bits
1 Heath Candy Bar, chopped into 4 pieces
Toasted Pecans (12-20)
1 large bar of dark chocolate
1 tsp. butter

Melt the bag of chocolate chips in a double boiler over a low simmer.  Once mostly melted, remove from heat and continue to stir until smooth.  Allow to cool COMPLETELY.  Set aside 3/4 cup of the prepared buttercream and beat the cooled chocolate into the remaining buttercream.

Melt the butterscotch chips in the same manner and beat the melted chips into the remaining 3/4 cup buttercream once it is cooled.

Combine the dark chocolate and the butter in the double boiler and melt together.  Spread the chocolate over the bottom half of each pecan and set on waxed paper.  Spread it over half of each of the Heath bar pieces at a diagonal and put them on the waxed paper.  Put the chocolate coated pieces in the fridge and set the remaining chocolate aside.

Lay 1 layer of cake on a plate and spread 3/4 of the butterscotch buttercream over it.  Top it with the second layer and frost the whole thing with chocolate buttercream.  Take handfuls of Heath bits and press them into the sides of the cake. 

Fit a pastry bag with a small round tip (I used Wilton tip 3) and fill with the dark chocolate.  Pipe it in zigzags around the edge of the cake.  With a smaller round tip (I used Wilton 1), pipe the remaining buttercream in a zigzag pattern on top of the dark chocolate. 

Press the Heath bar quarters into the middle of the cake with the corners facing each other, leaving room to stand some pecans in the middle of the formation.  Press three pecans in the middle.

With whatever remaining buttercream that you have (you’ll probably have more chocolate than butterscotch), pipe a generous dot onto the back of each pecan and apply to the sides of the cake.  I put them in the middle but you can put them anywhere you want.

Finally, fit a pastry bag with a large star tip (Wilton 21 ) and fill with chocolate buttercream.  Create a border around the bottom edge by piping stars all around.  Ta-da!  You’ve created a masterpiece that will feed 24 people (the number at the Turner’s dinner party) since only a small sliver is needed to satisfy.