Andrew's Wiki
Devils Hazelnut
Narrative
Upon waking one Saturday morning before my cake class, I decided that the Lemon Velvet just wasn’t right for class. The lovely buttercream recipes (a variety of meringue, really) wouldn’t hold up to the beautiful…eh… summer day, so I decided to make another cake. Decorating a runny cake would not make my day.
The class was in three hours.
I was happy that I’d received—against my better judgment—The Cake Mix Doctor—in the mail a few days before. I decided that, in an emergency, I’d be happy to have it around. And I was! A trip to the sketchy Weis down the street yielded a devil’s cake box mix, unsalted butter, and some eggs.
I used the good Doctor’s Chocolate Buttermilk recipe (good way to get rid of the buttermilk we had left over from another project) and decided to use her buttercream recipe as well. I wanted to steer clear of too much hardcore chocolate-on-chocolate action, so the buttercream was coffee-flavored by a homemade “coffee extract,” 3 tpbs of liquid made of equal parts coffee crystals and water.
The cake: Buttermilk devil’s food with nutella and coffee buttercream. I’d call it a hazelnut mocha if I weren’t planning on concocting a hazelnut latte cake in the future.
The mixing process was so, so heavenly. No flour to sift. No whites to whisk. I knew I’d sacrifice some homey flavors, but really, I had no time. (And if we want homemade, Lemon Velvet’s still in the fridge.) The oven thermometer showed me that my oven does not run hot…or cold…or right. It fluctuates. Sometimes it overshoots, sometimes undershoots, so no wonder my cakes seem uneven. Stupid oven.
It came out of the oven and out of the pans well (thanks, Baker’s Joy), though the rounds were super-sensitive, almost feathery. The cake is moist and tender, though the artificial-preservative aftertaste is not exactly something I’ll try to replicate. Given the lamentable dearth of coffee buttercream—three cups will NOT fill and frost an 8 inch layer cake, I’m sorry!—I filled the layers with nutella.
Crumb-coating was kind of fun. I tried to make it as thin as possible without leaving any dry spots on the cake, and I whipped the turntable around like I was a DJ. Here’s my new crumb-coating philosophy: let the frosting get really runny (let it get warm or add some water), let as many crumbs as want to join the party get into the buttercream, and aim for a thickness that will obviously freeze quickly. You would think a thicker crumb-coat would set faster, but think about it: if I’m gonna freeze it, it should be as runny as possible so I can make a thin, thin, thin layer to freeze quickly.
Thick frosting won’t create that lovely, glass-thin shellac that will cover the cake and isolate crumbs and potential crumbs (ie, loose edges or cake torn by the spatula) from the frosting. A thick, gooey layer won’t freeze as thoroughly, and it could come “up” again (that is, you might accidentally shove the frosting layer off the cake or glide your spatula through the crumb layer). You don’t want a goopy layer of frosting sitting on top of the cake for a crumb coat; you want to turn the top, say 1/32 of an inch on top of the cake into a rock-hard cake-oil mixture. That way, it’s like frosting the back of a bowl, not a cake.
After freezing the crumb coat for ten minutes (why bother with the fridge at this point?), I added the buttercream, sides first, making ridges at the top, then the top (adding absolutely tons of frosting, probably 1 c just for the top). To frost the sides, I just added a succession of heaping teaspoons of frosting to the middle of the sides, so the cake looked like it had a beaded necklace around the middle. Then, I very gradually smoothed the “beads” down into a smooth layer, taking at least 8 passes around the cake just to smooth the icing so that it reached the top and bottom of the cake. Making sure that the spatula actually touched the bottom of the cake board at all times created a sharp, clean bottom edge.
The top was simple, as always. I spent a little while making crisp top edges by shoving extra icing from forming a vertical ridge above the top edge to making a horizontal ridge beyond the sides, back and forth until I had ninety-degree edges. (Perhaps the edges were a little too well-frosted, as the top kind of slid down a little when I introduced it to the 90-degree outside. Next time, I’ll make sure I don’t overdo the top-edge icing!) Maybe two crumbs, total, showed through, and some tweezers would’ve fixed it.
I froze the cake again and then brushed it with a hot spatula, but watch out: the areas that the spatula touched ended up being a different color from the other frosting!
Totally unattractive. So, to all you people thinking about warming up your spatula to smooth your frosting, I say, It’s not worth it! This discoloration happened last time, and I knew it was from a temperature differential, but because it’s happened twice, I know the precise culprit—the hot spatula. Never again! Next time, I’ll break out the bench scraper.
The actual class went well, except for the tiny fact that I forgot my little toolbox and had to run home to retrieve it. I missed the first half hour of class as a result, thinking to myself, “They’re only filling pastry bags. I won’t miss a thing.” And of course that’s the moment they decide to learn shell borders! Shell borders!
I practically signed up for the class just so I could learn friggin’ shell borders. Sure, I’ve tried them on my own before:
But I did want the technique from my Wilton teacher, a former professional pastry chef. Sigh.
What I Learned
- Keep boxed cake mixes around. Just do it!
- Do whatever you want with buttercream. It’s so forgiving, try any flavor, as long as you’ve used some concentrated or strong version of the flavor so you don’t change the consistency of the frosting too much.
- I discovered my personal crumb-coating technique. (See above.)
- Shell borders require more attention and patience than “skill,” exactly. Make sure to fill the first part generously, then pull while decreasing pressure, and then finally “scrape” the surface to release shell. Be careful not to let any part of the border sag, and keep the bag at a convenient angle for following the surface of your cake (holding at seven o clock or five o clock will help you more than nine or three o clock).