June 16, 2013 - Old-Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake with Rich Chocolate Cream Frosting

So, wow the title of this post is a mouthful, but it was definitely worth it!  My birthday being June 17th, of course I had to make a birthday cake for myself.  Chocolate cake sounded great, so that's what I went for.

I think I've pretty much gotten the hang of basic cakes (the Genoise still looks a little scary to me though!).  Whisk the dry ingredients, add to the mixed wet ones, pour into pans and bake.  Sure this one had a couple minor differences (mixing eggs and milk together separately and adding at different times), but overall it was fairly similar to the other cakes I've made so far.

While the cakes were cooling it was time to make the frosting.  A whopping pound of chocolate went into this frosting, but boy was it tasty!  Once the chocolate was chopped up it was just a matter of pouring hot heavy cream over top, whisking in some corn syrup, and vanilla.  Then, let it sit to thicken.

By the time the frosting had set, the cake layers were cool and it was time to assemble.  The only thing I maybe could have done maybe for a nicer presentation was level off the top layer, but I wasn't all that concerned about it (mostly because it was my own cake and I didn't need to impress myself).  The cake turned out great.  The chocolate flavor between the cake and frosting was intense and awesome, and the cake itself was moist and dense, but not overly heavy.  I gave my compliments to the chef for a great birthday cake!