Monday, November 28, 2011

Chocolate-Strawberry Mini Cakes

When I first made this strawberry icing, I said I couldn't wait until I put it on a chocolate cake. Oh boy! I was right. It is so yummy!

And making these into mini-cakes meant I got to have that much more icing on/in each piece. It was really good. I highly recommend it.

What You Need: (to make 12-15 mini cakes)
1 recipe Rich Chocolate Cake
1 recipe Strawberry Buttercream Icing
Chocolate for drizzling
Optional: 
Piping bag & tip #18
Fondant Strawberries for Decoration
1 1/2-2" diameter biscuit cutter

Bake the chocolate cake in a 9"x2" square pan. While the cake bakes and cools, make one recipe of my strawberry icing. This will yield 15-20 2"x3" round mini-cakes.

When the cake is cooled, flip it over onto parchment paper so that the top is on the bottom and the bottom is on the top. If your cake bakes unevenly, you will also want to level the top before you begin torte.
To torte the cake, I use my cake leveler. I first cut the cake in half horizontally, then use it again on the top and bottom halves to make a total of four layers.

To separate the layers, I covered pieces of cardboard with foil, and slid the cardboard separators in between the bottom two layers. Remove the cardboard to leave just your bottom layer on the parchment paper.

Spread about 1 cup of the strawberry icing on top of the bottom layer, making sure to spread it all the way to the ends. (You don't have to be too clean here, as you will cut the edges off anyway, but you do want it to be a uniform thickness throughout.)

Add the next layer, and again spread 1 cup of the icing.

Repeat with the third cake layer and another cup of icing. Top it with the final layer of cake- but do not yet spread the icing on the very top.

Now for the messy work... you may want to refrigerate the cake at this point for 30 minutes or so to make the icing a little less sticky, but be sure you don't let it get too hard, either.
To cut out the rounds, I pushed the cutter through the cake, and turned it a bit to get it out. You can also pull it out to the side. To maximize your cake, I placed the rounds as close to one another as possible.

I place each one on a paper doily, and topped them with small rosettes using a piping bag and tip #18. You could also add a rough/peaky swipe of icing to the top of each one.
To make rosettes, hold the bag straight up from the surface. Start with a star in the center, then make a full circle around the star.  (Here's a link to Wilton's description of the technique.)

If you want, you can also top them with a fondant strawberry decoration, and drizzle them with some melted chocolate.
I drizzle the chocolate using a disposable decorating bag with a tiny bit cut off of the end.

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2 comments:

  1. what size was your cookie cutter? like what size were the cakes?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The cutter was a medium-sized biscuit cutter, so approx. 2 1/2" diameter.
      - Beki

      Delete

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