I’ve
just spent an exhausting week in Lithuania with my university music society –
lots of sun, two brilliant concerts and rather more alcohol (and less sleep)
than I’m used to! Needless to say, the closest I got to cooking anything was
the occasional picnic lunch. However, I’m now staying at my parents’ house for
a week before heading back to my own home and my new job, so I’m taking the
opportunity to do some baking in my mum’s shiny, spacious kitchen.
For a
while now, I’ve wanted to try making swiss meringue buttercream. I’ve seen so
many beautifully iced cakes which use it as their topping, and I love the
silky, shiny look of it. But I’ve never actually seen in in real life. It
doesn’t seem to be a big thing around my neck of the woods, and when I’ve baked
in the past I’ve always stuck with plain buttercreams or occasionally ganaches.
So now seemed like a good time to finally pull my socks up and give it a shot.
Before
making the buttercream, I needed a cake to put it on. Left to my own devises, I
probably would have gone for something coffee or fruit flavoured, but as I’m at
home I let my brothers have the last say, and the consensus was that a
chocolate cake would be most appreciated. I’ve tried many chocolate cake
recipes over the years, but have never found one that really stuck. I can’t
decide exactly what it is I look for in a chocolate cake. I’m not really fond
of those which are too dense and rich, but chocolate cakes which are too dry
and light always seem a little inappropriate too.
My
usual approach to finding a new recipe is to browse the internet, but there are
so many chocolate cake recipes online that it’s not really a useful place to
look. Instead, I went back to the most basic cook book my mum owns – one I’ve
always been very jealous of – her Reader’s Digest: The Cookery Year. It’s a brilliant
book, covering everything from meats and fish to puddings, cakes and biscuits.
Each section has a few detailed recipes than a lot of simple recipes that can
be varied. And of course, there’s a chocolate cake recipe.
The
ingredients were pretty conventional: egg, flour, butter, sugar, cocoa powder.
For the most part, the method is also pretty basic. The one unusual step – at
least to me – was the suggestion that the cocoa powder be made into a paste
with a little bit of water before being added to the cake. I did as instructed,
adding a splash of strong coffee (because I think it brings out chocolate
flavour in a cake) and was quite pleased with the result. The cake itself was
moist and chocolatey, without being overpoweringly rich. The only criticism I
had of the recipe at all was that it suggested baking the cake for 30 minutes –
mine only needed 22 minutes, but that may have been because I split it into two
cake tins to make layering easier.
Cake
finished and cooling, it was time to attempt the SMB (as I believe Swiss
meringue buttercream is often referred to). I was a little nervous about this,
and I have to admit that I made a couple of mistakes which probably nearly
ruined it. But with a little help from Sweetapolita’s wonderful post (make that
a lot of help!) it turned out exactly as I’d hoped, and complimented the
chocolate cake perfectly. My first near miss was due to a scale meltdown: the
kitchen scales decided to tell me that 230g of butter only weighed 140g, and
had I not been suspicious about the fact that I’d finished up a pat of butter
in one go, I could easily have wound up adding double the required amount of
butter to my meringue mix. Luckily, I caught that one early! My second mistake
was to misread 140F as 140C, and spend quite a while attempting to get my
meringue mixture to reach twice the intended temperature (140F is about 60C…).
Luckily, it never got above 75C anyway, and it didn’t seem to do much harm in
the long run! I finished it off with the scrapings from a vanilla pod,
producing a beautifully textured, delicious tasting, indulgent frosting I was
happy to spread on my cake.
Overall,
I’m really quite happy with today’s experiments. The cake recipe is one I’ll
certainly revisit, and it may even become a standard. The buttercream was
easier and tastier than I had expected, and whilst it’s more time consuming
that my standard icing recipe, it’s worth the extra effort for the smooth,
buttery finish and the silky appearance. I can’t wait to try out other flavours
in the future!
Reader’s Digest Chocolate Cake (from Readers Digest The Cookery Year)
4oz butter
4oz caster sugar
2 eggs
1oz cocoa powder
2tsp strong coffee
4oz flour
Pinch of salt
Swiss Meringue Buttercream - I followed Sweetapolita's instructions here, using the following volumes to make enough to ice and fill my small layer cake.
2 egg whites
140g butter
100g caster sugar
1 vanilla bean
I had enough left over to cover an extra layer, or possibly to go around the outside, but I tend to be a little bit mean with my frosting...
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| Enjoy! |
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