Mocha layer cake

Take 2

Recipe

Mocha cake - Liv for cake

^ I adjusted the buttercream recipe to use a whole block of butter by multiplying all ingredients by 1.3.

• 136g egg whites (about 4 eggs)

• 260g white sugar (1.3 cups)

• 445g butter (1 block)

• 1.3 tsp vanilla

• 1.3 tbsp espresso powder

• 110g dark chocolate (I used semi-sweet and reduced sugar by 10%)

I used two 9" pans instead of three 6" ones, and reduced the baking time to 22 minutes.

How it turned out

Much better than the first! While I love everything else I've baked by Claire Saffitz, the first chocolate cake was a miss and far too dry.

This one, however, was beautifully moist. It will definitely be my go-to chocolate cake.

What I learned

A little goes a long way. Unlike before, I decided to keep the decorations very simple. I frosted the cake, and used a scraper to make waves along the sides. Then simply piped blobs of icing around the top with a chocolate covered espresso bean.

Practice makes perfect. While this cake looked much tidier than my first attempt, decorating with buttercream is still an art I've yet to master. I think I got better at smoothing the surface, but the blobs at the top were a bit messy. Next time I'll try piping them just like I pipe macarons - in one go, and letting the buttercream expand out, rather than up.

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Take 1

Recipes

• Chocolate buttermilk cake - Claire Saffitz, "Dessert Person"

• Mocha swiss meringue buttercream frosting

• Classic cream cheese frosting - Claire Saffitz, "Dessert Person"

• Tempered white chocolate - the spruce eats

Plus some leftover macarons for decoration.

How it turned out

Our friends recently celebrated their 10 year wedding anniversary. I decided to use this as an excuse to practice cake-baking.

For my first honest go at a layered "occasion" cake, I was pretty pleased. All the elements turned out as they were supposed to and held their shape.

• The structure of the cake layers were great - no drooping.

• The buttercream didn't melt at room temperature, and even held the chocolate decoration very firmly.

• I found the cake itself dry, but still tasty.

• I think I have a ways to go in terms of decorating and tweaking flavour combos, but overall I'm happy with how it turned out.

Base layers with cream cheese frosting.

Crumb coat of mocha buttercream.

What I learned

Recipes matter. I am a big fan of Claire Saffitz. I find all her recipes really approachable. However, I found this chocolate cake dry. At first I thought it was just me, but turns out others thought so too. Next time, I may try her NYT chocolate cake recipe, which seems to have more positive reviews.

Less is more. I wanted to try tempering chocolate, piping with chocolate, and piping with buttercream. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to do all of those things on this one 6-inch cake. It ended up looking too busy. Next time, I'm going to take a less-is-more approach when it comes to decorating.

All the things!