Classy Tall Devil’s Food Cake

This is another project that I made in class. A super tall Devil’s Food Cake (about 4″ tall, not include the decoration on top)with a shiny smooth Dark Chocolat Ganache outside. The cake looks very Classy at the end right? The reason that I made this super tall cake is that my Chef love tall cakes. She made a demo of 4 layers Devil’s Food Cake like this in class, but only required us to make a 3 layers (shorter) cake. I prefer the tall one more because I get bored with normal-looking cakes 😀 So I made this Classy Tall Devil’s Food Cake to make my Chef more happy when she saw it. Although I mess up with the Ganache a a little bit, my Chef still gave me a perfect 10 (maybe partly because my Cake is the tallest one in class :D) The cake itself is very moist and tender. But it’s sweeter than my usual taste. So in the recipe below, I reduce the sugar by 2 oz. I don’t want to reduce too much because Sugar helps tenderize baked goods, so if I reduced too much, the cake would be as tender as it should be. …

Ingredients for Devil’s Food Cake: (for two 9″ cake pans)
12 oz. cake flour
2 oz. dark brown Cocoa powder
0.25 oz. salt
0.375 oz. baking powder
0.25 oz. Baking soda
7 oz. Emulsified shortening, soften at room temperature
14 oz. milk
8 oz. eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
13 oz. sugar (the original recipe uses 16 oz. sugar)

Directions:
1) Sift all the dry ingredients together TWICE to incorporate more air. Transfer dry ingredients to a mixing bowl.
2) Add the soft emulsified shortening to mixing bowl. Mix with paddle attachment at speed 1 for 1 minute. Stop and scrape down bowl
3) Combine all milk with eggs and vanilla extract
4) On speed 1, add all the liquid mixture slowly over a 2 minute period. Stop and scrape down bowl
5) Increase mixer to speed 2, mix 4 minutes, stop and scrape down bowl
6) Increase mixer to speed 3, mix 3 minutes to incorporate a lot of air. Stop and scrape down bowl. The batter will be very light brown and fluffy now.
7) Bake at 320 degree F for 30 minutes
8) After 30 minutes, check if cake is done by skewer test or finger print test. Let cool completely. Depan onto cake board. Wrap tightly and put cake in freezer until semi-frozen.

Italian Chocolate Butter Cream:

16 oz. sugar
4 oz. water
8 oz. Egg whites

28 oz. Soften butter
1 tsp. Lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Unsweetened Chocolate, melt

Combine sugar and water in a sauce pan over stove and bring to boil. Can stir sugar at the beginning to help sugar dissolve better. But DO NOT stir after boiling. Cook sugar until soft ball stage (the candy thermometer reaches 240 degree F). Meanwhile, beat Egg whites on speed 2 until very foamy.

After sugar reaches 240 degree F, increase mixer speed to speed 3 (highest speed) and drizzle sugar over egg whites and whip until stiff peaks form. You will get Italian Meringue. Continue to whip until the meringue cool to room temperature.

Then add half of the butter (soften) and whip until incorporate. Then add little by little until you see the butter cream is light and spreadable. You may not need to add all of the butter. Finally, add vanilla extract and lemon juice. Whip more until smooth.

After you have Italian Butter Cream, melt the unsweeten chocolate and add to the butter cream, little by little, up to your taste to achieve a bitter sweet chocolate butter cream

Cut cake into 4 layers and coat with chocolate butter cream. Then put cake into freezer to freeze cake before pour Chocolate Ganache on cake.

*Note: You may note that the cream between cake layers has darker color than the butter cream coating outside the cake. It’s actually the chocolate mousse that stays between cake layers, but I think it’s too sweet so I don’t post the recipe here. Instead, I would just used Chocolate butter cream in between cake layers.

For the Chocolate Ganache:
8oz. heavy cream
10 oz. finely shaved dark chocolate (70-80% cocoa)( the original recipe uses semi-sweet chocolate)

Heat heavy cream in a sauce pan until simmer. Pour simmering heavy cream over shaved chocolate in a bowl. Cover bowl for 1 minute to let the chocolate steamed a little bit. Then use a whisk and whisk from the center of the bowl and going out. Whisk until all shaved chocolate is melted and combined with heavy cream to create a shiny and smooth Ganache.

Set up a chocolate station and quickly pour warm chocolate ganache over the frozen cake, starting from the center and going around. Tap to make sure the ganache cover all the cake. Wait until no rip, then transfer cake to a nice cake board. Then decorate with chocolate butter cream rosettes and choc. piping decor.

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You know what? This cake also makes the 51st in my photo gallery on foodgawker.com under code #165677. Yayyyyy! Chef Kathy must be very happy when she knows this. Thanks Chef Kathy so much for a wonderful recipe! This is also the first time I love a chocolate cake this much!
Here is the link to see the photo of this cake on foodgawker:
http://foodgawker.com/post/2012/05/18/165677/