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| Chocolate cake with raspberry filling/glaze and coconut garnish |
Fortunately, my Sunday night cake nightmare was confined to REM. For the cake layers I used Amanda Hesser's "Chocolate Dump-It Cake" recipe, multiplied by 1.5. Instead of the prescribed 6 oz of chocolate, I used 7 oz (two Ghiradelli Twilight Delight bars). I also used only 2 cups of sugar instead of 3, since my lab (for whom I made the cake) shares my preference for desserts that aren't too sweet. In this recipe's case, these changes resulted in a cake that was only lightly sweet and very chocolately; if I were to serve the cake alone (without frosting or filling), I would probably only reduce the sugar by 20% or 25%.
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| In progress |
In lieu of frosting, which is also not on my lab's list of favorite things, I spread raspberry jam between the two layers and as the "glaze" on top. Since the cake would have to sit overnight in the fridge, I also spread a little bit of jam-diluted-in-water around the bare sides of the cake as a moisturizer. The two nine-inch cake pans I used are a tiny bit different in terms of shape - one has sloped sides - so I put some more raspberry jam in the small lip between the layers and pressed sweetened flaked coconut all around the cake as a garnish. The result was quite festive and also tasted pretty good: the jam kept the cake nice and moist, and the jam's sweetness also created a nice balance of austerity and indulgence.
