Fondant-Covered Chocolate Wedding Cake

Making cakes is a source of my fulfillment. No matter how long the procedures are, I take pleasure in creating and decorating  delicious and beautiful cakes. Here's another wedding cake creation I made right after my return from Bangkok. I was looking forward to making it even before I took my three days leave. I made a moist chocolate cake iced with chocolate butter cream frosting. I wrapped the cake with rolled white fondant for that perfectly smooth look.


I have tried many chocolate recipes and I can honestly say this is one of the best. Moist, rich and oh so decadent. The recipe is adapted from Addapinch.com. The original recipe calls for espresso powder. I didn't have any so I grabbed roasted coffee beans from the bar and grind it finely. The addition of freshly ground coffee beans gave this cake a much richer and intense flavor.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon  finely ground roasted coffee beans
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Directions: This is how I did it.
I preheated oven to 350F, that's around 180 degrees C.  I had to make 2 tiered cake with 2 pound cake on the bottom and half a pound on the top. Instead of baking it in a two 9 inch pan as what the original recipe calls for, I used 7 and 6 inches pan. The baking time was shorter because the pans were smaller. 

I made the batter  by hand because my mixers are too big and they are only good for making stuff in bulk. I sifted  flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt together before I added sugar and ground coffee beans. I stirred in milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract and mixed them until they were well combined. I gradually added boiling water to the mixture and beat it for a minute to give the batter some volume. I poured the batter into the pans three quarters full. Yup, it's a lot of batter.

The bigger cake took 35-40 minutes to bake while the small pan 25-30. I removed them from the oven when the skewer inserted in the center came out clean. I allowed the cake to cool in the pan for another 10 minutes before unmolding.

I cooled them completely before frosting.

For the chocolate butter cream frosting, I opted to use half and half to achieve a creamier texture. I omitted coffee this time. It turned out well minus the coffee but I knew it would have tasted so much better had I added it. I have not tried adding ground coffee beans  so I was just worried about having lumps in my butter cream. Oh well,  I will definitely try it with coffee  next time

So here's the recipe.
1½ cups butter (3 sticks), softened
1 cup cocoa
5 cups confectioner’s sugar
½ cup half and half (half milk and half cream)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

I carved the small cake into a smaller cake. I masked the cake with butter cream and chilled it for a bit. I gave it just enough time to harden up the frosting. I then covered the cake with white fondant. I rolled tiny fondant balls and stick them around the base of the cake.

The cake was adorned with fresh roses - thanks to the resort's housekeeping manager for doing a good job with the flower accents.