The Classic

Cake Slice Baker time!
This month from the Vintage Cakes cookbook we got to choose from Banana Cake with Coffee Walnut Buttercream and The Classic.  I choose the Classic with the Fudge Frosting.
The Classic is described as ~ An all-American birthday cake! The sunny yellow layers, surrounded by rich fudge frosting will sweeten any special day.

I have to admit that while doing my mise en place for this recipe I kept thinking - my gosh there are way too many ingredients for a simple classic cake but let's try it!

Preheat your oven.

Prepare your pans... I am making cupcakes with this one. 

Sift together your dry, measure out your wet, crack your eggs and get your butter sugar creaming.  

A tip for you , especially when using a stand mixer, crack your eggs into a measuring cup with a pour spout. It is much easier to pour them into the mixing bowl when it is running.  You will find that each egg will pour in as an individual so the "add one egg at a time" is not difficult at all.

Butter and sugar creamed, oil and vanilla streamed in, and eggs mixed in one at a time.  Time to mix in your wet and dry ingredients alternating between the two.

When whipping cream use a large, chilled bowl along with a large whisk.  Tilt the bowl several times during the whisking.  These key pieces to the whipping puzzle will make for a quick job.

Fold in your lovingly beaten whisked cream.  Be gentle and the lightness of your cake will be your reward.

A three-tablespoon size scoop works well for filling a standard cupcake with minimal mess.

I baked the cupcakes for 21 minutes with a swap/rotate halfway through the bake.  As you can see my 1939 oven has a bit of an evenness issue.  We will be seeking therapy for it soon.

I would have to say this is not the optimum recipe for cupcakes as it did not bake up with a nice dome but rather flat and spread out.  Which resulted in a few cupcakes becoming tasting volunteers.

Onto the frosting.  Heat your cream and sugar until it just starts to simmer.  Pour over the chocolate and let sit for a few minutes.

Whisk the mixture until it is well mixed and the chocolate is completely melted.  Place the bowl on a rack to allow for even cooling.  

For a nice airy frosting, place the cooled mixture into your mixer with the whisk attachment and whisk on medium for 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

  

This frosting is a breeze to work with making it one of my favorites - you can't go wrong with ganache!

I decided to fancy up these cupcakes since I was taking to to a get together.  First I made some curls.  I only made a few because they weren't being team players.

So I moved onto piping free form squiggles.  Much easier.

Let those set for a few and then slid a off set spatula under them and they came right off the wax paper.  Simply laid the decorations on top of the frosting and poof! In-sto-pres-to fancischmany!

The Classic can be found in the cookbook Vintage Cakes.


*My side notes... in the original recipe for the frosting it calls for the bowl to be covered after pouring the heated cream over the chocolate.  I would not advise this because of the condensation that will occur on the covering and may get into your mixture.

I got pretty good reviews on these cupcakes.  The cake was light and airy.  The most common complaint was overall a bit too sweet.  Maybe if the frosting did not have the sugar in it or used a bittersweet chocolate instead.
I find it interesting to have made this recipe this month since I have been reading up on high ratio cakes.  A good bite (pun-ish) of information on high ratio cakes can be found at Joe Pastry.

Enjoy!

Visit the other Cake Slice Bakers here.

:)