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Sunday, November 14, 2010

HCB Free Choice: Black Chocolate Party Cake and White Velvet Butter Cake


Here are a couple of cakes I made 3 weeks ago: Black Chocolate Party Cake and White Velvet Butter Cake with Milk Chocolate Ganache.


The Black Chocolate Party cake I was really curious about. Mainly because it used A LOT of cocoa powder. It is realy a lot, or more like a boatload. Not only it used a lot of cocoa powder in the batter, there's cocoa syrup that used - well you guessed it - more cocoa powder.

Since I made these cakes weeks ago, and just now blogging about it, I totally forgot how the cake was made. If there is ever a recipe memory contest, I would definitely lose LOL. I do, however, remember that both of these cakes were really easy.


As I don't remember how these cakes were made, we are going to skip ahead to tasting impressions. But before that, one note about the white velvet butter cake. I made 2/3 of the recipe and baked it in an 6 inch pan and a 4 inch pan. The cake didn't turn out as smooth as I wanted, so as you can see the ganache is not smooth as well. I was pretty bummed about that, and now looking back I realized I should have refrigerated the cake so it would firm up a bit and become easier to apply the ganache. Speaking of the ganache, I did not have milk chocolate at home, so I melted 3 oz of Green & Black's Dark Chocolate (70%) and 3 oz of Green & Black's White Chocolate (30%). I think the result is pretty close to milk chocolate.

Tasting impressions:
I do not like the Black Chocolate Party Cake. It smelled really good, very chocolate-y smell, but the texture was too dense and not very exciting. I am sad to say that this I think is the worst cake from RHC in my opinion (sorry, Rose!). I could barely finish a piece :(.

The White Velvet Butter cake is really good. The taste is pretty simple, like any white cake (but better). The ganache is a bit on a sweet side - so I was glad I only used a thin coating (I have 1/3 of it left in the freezer). This one, I am happy to report, will get made again :).

9 comments:

  1. It's always good to hear honest commentary, whether good or bad. I've tried the white velvet cake and like it better than a lot of scratch white cakes. Sorry about the ganace... it still looks delish!

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  2. Regardless of the "taste" outcome, both pictures make you run to the kitchen to bake them!

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  3. Hmmm.. . . I'm intrigued with the Black Chocolate Party Cake. I LOVE chocolate and I usually like dense so I wonder if I would like it. Both cakes look delicious.

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  4. ב''ה

    Good to get perspective on these cakes. Maybe I'll pass on the chocolate party cake next time. They both look great though!

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  5. well, your photos are beautiful, even if the black party cake wasn't to your liking. i'm still looking forward to both cakes! i hope the white velvet cake is as good as the one in TCB (hopefully better).

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  6. Nice photos! It's nice to hear your opinion on the Chocolate Party Cake. That one probably will probably go to the bottom of my list for Free Choice weeks. I really like the White Velvet Butter Cake. It has become my go-to scratch white cake. I've never actually had it with the milk chocolate ganache though.

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  7. Scratch white cakes are always perilous. When executed perfectly they put mixes to shame, and are so light and airy without that trace of oily-ness. But it's all too easy to under or overbake them. I am really excited to try the white velvet butter cake for my next layer cake experiment.

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  8. Both cakes look very pretty. Sorry you didn't like the Black Cake. I made it last year but messed up while making 1/2 or a 1/3 of the recipe and doing the math on the spot. I used the entire amount of baking soda and the cake had a weird/soapy taste. But at work nobody could tell... hmmmm... weird.
    The white cake looks moist. I haven't made the one from RHC yet but I haven't had much luck with the white cake in TCB. Made it a few times and then gave up. It came out too dry every single time. Maybe I should try the recipe in RHC (it wasn't dry, was it?)

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