Chocolate Featherbed Cake for my Love

Hi my dear ones.....May all you have a wonderful year ahead.....I was a little busy with my kid and enjoying motherhood.....The climate here is so comforting and often trips me to enjoy sleep, hugging Rydhi when Anish goes to office. But when my man's birthday arrived on January 6, the entire thing went off....I was thinking of making a cake which I never tried.....to bring him a new experience.....My loving youngest brother, Rahul's birthday is also on the same date....so lucky ahh? Both brothers shares the same DOB's but with 10 year difference......So this cake is for him also :-):-)

Anish is a big fan of chocolate cakes eventhough he doesn't takes much chocolates like me :P. God is really gracious to me......Five six months before, I came to know about the book " The Cake Bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum. When I saw the book through Google, I really dreamt of having that book. We have a library on our way to church. When we went to the library for the first time, my eyes went on the racks searching this one....Fortunately, I found one copy of it and I felt like it was waiting there for me.

And...I'm so excited to tell you that I got an award from Anupa from Palaharam. Will share more about it soon.

I baked this cake on a sheet pan.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

Half cup plus two tablespoons of powdered sugar

Six large eggs separated at room temperature

3/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar

4 oz/113 grams of chopped dark chocolate

Dark chocolate frosting:

175 grams/One and half stick unsalted butter 

125 ml of water

2 tablespoons of dark brown muscovado or dark brown sugar

300 grams best-quality chopped dark chocolate 

Method:

Take a Jelly roll pan or any rectangular baking sheet  with only 1 inch thickness (I used 12.25  X 8.25 X 1 inch jelly roll pan ), lined with  butter coated parchment paper overhang on the shorter sides.

Preheat the oven to 350^oF/175^oC. Heat chocolate in microwave till almost completely melted, stirring every 15 seconds or use the double boiling method and allow it to cool completely.

In a large bowl, beat the half cup of sugar and the egg yolks on high speed for about 5 minutes till it falls like a ribbon. Now add the melted chocolate and beat at medium speed until the chocolate and the batter forms a uniform mixture.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites on medium until foamy. Add cream of tartar and raise the speed and beat again until soft peaks form. Now put in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form

At the moment, fold one fourth of the beaten egg whites (meringue) into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Gently fold the remaining meringue till the chocolate and the meringue mixtures are well blended.

With a silicon spatula, scrape the mixture to the prepared pan and spread the surface evenly with an offset spatula and bake for 16 minutes.

 The cake is done when a toothpick inserted comes out clean and springs back when pressed lightly at the center.

Cover the cake with clean dry towels and cool the cake completely . Afterwards, with a spatula or knife slowly and carefully dislodge the cake from the pan and cut the cake into three uniform parts.

Frosting:

Now stack each portion of the cake and apply frosting in between.

This time, I played with Wilton 's tip 233 to make some greenery for my evergreen hero, who is entering the next stage :-)

I thought I could not give my b'day boy a surprise by baking a special cake as he expects me to bake a special cake for him, but he got astonished by this featherbed cake. The joy was shared by our sweet neighbors - 7 months old cutie, Adhrit, Dhanya and Renjit chettan.

 Rydhi couldn't resist the urge to consume the decorations........

The cake is intensively chocolaty,  feather weighed and flourless. So no need of baking powder or baking soda. So, give a try :-)