Chocolate Cake with Whipped Icing & Buttercream decoration

I'm back.......kind of, it's been almost 3 weeks I was off the blogging, no particular reason just busy with the kids, being absent from the blogging gave me the feeling of bunking the classes.......hard to decide now ,how to come back, well made this cake past week, so decided to post it. During the past weeks, missed on reading all the wonderful posts on my favourite blogs, will surely try to catch up when ever I get some time. Here's what we baked  to celebrate DD's spring break : "Chocolate Cake".

I mainly followed the recipe from here, but instead of making it layered cake I halved the recipe & baked only one 8" round pan. Thou, the changes I made are very small but still I'm going to write down the ingredient list so that next time I don't have to do all the calculations again, if any of you want to make it 2 layer please check the original recipe that way it'll be more easy.

What U need :

• 3/4 cup of water
• 2 ounce unsweetened chocolate bar/chips (I used semi sweet so i decreased the quantity of sugar)
• 2 Tblsp. of unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/ 2 cup unsalted butter(1 stick)
• 4&1/2 Tblsp. granulated sugar
• 4&1/2 Tblsp. light brown sugar (I used only 1 Tblsp. b'coz of semi sweet choc.)
• 1 whole large egg + 1 egg yolk (I use organic ones)
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup all purpose flour (I used cake flour 1 cup + 2 Tblsp.)
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• pinch of salt

What U do :

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Grease & flour  pan.
2. In microwave heat water & chocolate chips, stir them to make a smooth mixture add cocoa powder & again whisk it till creamy & smooth, set aside & let it cool.
3. Sift flour + baking soda + salt.
4. Cream butter for a minute or so, add both sugars & beat it for another 2 minutes until light & fluffy.
5. Add one egg at a time. Mixing well after each addition.
6. Add the flour mixture & melted chocolate alternately, stirring well after each addition.
7. Pour it into prepared pan & bake it for around 20 minutes or so, mine was done in exactly 18 minutes. If  you use more or less batter, baking time will vary accordingly.

Now, baking a cake is one part, making it a real cake is next part. Yes, you guys read it right....A cake is not real if it doesn't have any frosting on it.....frosting on the cake makes it real cake, at least that's what my daughter says. At least once a week I bake cupcakes for her & whip up some heavy cream for her as a frosting and she loves that but once in a while I guess it's O.k to spend some extra time to decorate cake/cupcakes so kids feel extra special, so this was one of that kind of day. Result happy kids & happy mom & dad........well for two reasons one, she got a real cake and second,because I was busy experimenting with the icing so I get off from the dinner duty....NO....NO....No he didn't cooked but he was happy to bring home pizza. Finally the icing :

To frost the cake I used fresh whip cream : 1 & 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream + 3 Tblsp. of confectioner sugar, whipped together till a stiff peak is formed. Once you get the right thickness(stiff peak) stop, don't over beat it. Ice the cake and keep it in the fridge until you are ready to decorate.

Butter cream icing for decoration: 

• 3 Tblsp. unsalted butter
• 3 Tblsp. vegetable shortening( I use Crisco brand)
• 1 tsp. corn syrup
• 1 Tblsp. water
• 1/2 tsp. clear vanilla flavor
• 1 &1/2 to 2 cups of confectioner sugar
• pinch of salt

Cream butter, shortening, water, corn syrup & flavoring. Add dry ingredients(add only 1 & 1/2 cup at this point) and mix well, until creamy, taste & if feel more sugar needed add rest of the sugar you might need another tsp. of water if you are using all the sugar, beat until creamy. This process may take 5-10 minutes if using hand held beater, stand mixer makes the job little easier.

Divide the icing into two parts. Add 2-3 drops of red color to get the pink shade in one & mix it properly so that color is mixed well. Now to get the red shade it takes little extra color, in my case I ended up using at least 10-12 drops of red but still couldn't get rich dark color. But all that color made my icing little loose so I had to add extra tablespoon of confectioner sugar & mix it well(make sure no lumps are formed).

Using cookie cutters mark the pattern on the cake and finally prepare two pastry bags with each icing color and using different star tip # 13, 16, 21 fill  the design with stars and shells on the borders.

Note : As I'm using freshly whipped cream for frosting and also butter in the buttrecream icing, the decorated cake may not withstand the hot temperature. So, it's best to keep it in the fridge, take it out may be half an hour before you are ready to eat it.

I'm sending this cake to one of my favorite blogger Champa of Bangalore Baker for her ongoing Bake-Off event.