Last year, I had a Halloween dinner party and had so much fun with it, I'm hoping to make it an annual celebration. I have pictures coming later of the actual party I held this year, but I wanted to keep this post to one topic - the dessert. I upped the ante this year by making a cake from scratch and went straight for the yummy-looking, chocolate-y, and kinda scary Devil's Food Cake with Flame Tuiles from the Martha Stewart holiday Halloween magazine (the "bad things" side, of course).
I knew the cake would take a long time, so I started super-early last Saturday and yet still underestimated the effort required to bake this bad-boy.
After sleeping in a wee-bit, we made a quick run to the grocery store for all the ingredients for the evening...including an $8 box of Dutch-process cocoa powder, which the recipe required. Not sure if that "Dutch-process" part is totally required, but I figured I'd better not experiment with my first from-scratch cake.
You see, I don't think I've ever actually baked a cake from scratch before last weekend, and for sure, I've never baked a two tier cake. Don't let the two tiers scare you off, new bakers, that was the easy part! lol Anywho, see these red-thingys? They are the "flames" for my cake. They're actually very thin cookies that I've tinted with icing colors - a mixture of red and copper (b/c Michaels was out of orange). I met a nice lady at Michaels who helped me out w/ tons of suggestions, including the mention of "Cake Release." I paired this with a circle of parchment paper on the bottom of the pan (b/c I'm paranoid) and the cake really did pop right out!
Oh, and you know this trick about icing cakes, right? Put your cake on your cake stand and add little pieces of parchment paper tucked just under the edges of the cake...
...ice away...
...and when you're done icing your cake, simply remove the parchment paper and you have a beautifully iced cake and a clean cake stand.
After the addition of the flames, we're all done! Woohoo!
Ooh...scary "flames"! Can ya tell I made them too tall? The directions said to make them 5"x2", but I think I was supposed to break more of the tuiles off...oopsie!
This side looks more "flame-y" I think.
The best part was, I didn't ruin the cake (a fear for any first-time-from-scratch baker) - it was worth all the hard work and tasted so yummy! It tasted like a dark-chocolate cake...a flame-covered, dark-chocolate Devil's food cake, that is! Yum!
OMG - that is amazing & so mouth watering!!!
Posted by: Amethyst | November 01, 2008 at 07:52 PM
Oh my goodness! Your Devil's Food Cake looks so scrumptious and chocolaty that I could just have a bite right through the computer screen. May have to try that one. Have you ever made Martha's Red Velvet cake? It's the best.
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Posted by: costa rica investments | July 30, 2010 at 03:04 PM
cake is so great, very nice and how do you do it? I wanna study...ok??
Posted by: Jordan Hydro | July 30, 2010 at 11:18 PM
Ya me also wants the method of making it.you done a fabulous job over here.It is commendable work done by you.
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