Two tiers for two birthdays

My first two tiered cake attempt. It wasn't perfect, but that was mostly because I had run out of frosting. But all the basic components were there, and it didn't collapse. Hooray! Most importantly, it tasted good. Pretty basic devils food cake with vanilla frosting. Yum.

Cake: (courtesy of favorite cooksillustrated)
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
1.25 cups boiling water
3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted softened butter
1.5 cups packed dark brown sugar
3 large room temperature eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine cocoa and chocolate in a bowl and pour boiling water over it. Whisk together until melted and smooth.



Sift together flour, baking soda and salt.

Beat butter in a standing mixer at medium-high speed until creamy. Add brown sugar and beat on high for another few minutes until fluffy. Increase speed to medium-high and add eggs one at a time. Beat for a few seconds between each egg. Add sour cream and vanilla. This entire time, scrape down the sides of the bowl when necessary.

With mixer on low speed, add about one third of flour mixture, followed by about one half of chocolate mixture. Follow with another flour third, then the rest of the chocolate, and finally the rest of the . Do not overbeat. Remove bowl from mixer; scrape bottom and sides of bowl with rubber spatula and mix gently to thoroughly combined.

Divide batter between your buttered pans. I used two nine inch pans and two six inch pans.


Cook for around 20 minutes (smaller cakes finish quicker!) - a good test for the doneness of a cake is to lightly press the middle. If it springs back up, it's done. Let the rounds cool on wire racks for a few minutes, loosen the cake from the walls with a knife, and transfer to the wire rack (without pans).

Let them cool entirely, and wrap in plastic wrap until you need them (unless its immediately).

Frosting:
1 stick unsalted softened butter
1 eight ounce package cream cheese, softened
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla.

This is pretty easy...just beat all these ingredients together with a mixer (either hand held or standing). If it needs some liquid, add a little milk. Try to make the frosting just before you frost the cake. I've never had much success trying to restore refrigerated frosting back to a desirable consistency for frosting.

Now, for the construction. You'll need cardboard rounds, and either wooden dowels or regular drinking straws for support. I prefer straws, because they're easier to cut, easier to find and plenty supportive enough.

I like to freeze my chocolate cakes, as it prevents your cake from leaving dark "freckles" in the nice white frosting. Make sure before you freeze, that you've leveled off your cakes. If its bulged on top, it will be hard to stack. Here are my cakes and the cardboard rounds:



Smear some frosting on the 9 inch cardboard round to hold as glue. Put large cake #1 on the round, cover with frosting, add #2, and then cover with frosting. Insert straws (same height as bottom tier) around the perimeter of where the top tier will be sitting. Otherwise, your cake will collapse. Do the same thing with the little set of cakes, then put the same tier on top of the large one, over the pre-inserted straws. Finish frosting your cake, and voila! Decorate how you please. Also, frosting a cake is much easier with an offset spatula, just FYI.



The red on my cake is just some brushed on raspberry reduction. I suspended a bag of frozen raspberries over a mesh strainer, let the juice collect, and then reduced in a saucepan over medium high heat.