Chocolate Cake Disaster

Decorating By RositaFresita Updated 5 Sep 2006 , 7:08pm by RositaFresita

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RositaFresita Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:14pm
post #1 of 20

Hello Everyone:
I baked a chocolate cake from Colette Peters Cake Decorating Book, and it was a total loss.

First of all, the recipe calls for crisco, flour, sugar, etc. but the weird thing is that the book says "put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix at a low speed", the last ingredient to add was 1 1/2 cup of hot strong coffee.

Well this cake baked perfectly (apparently), flat, easy to unmold, cooked through but when I cut the cake it was a total disaster. Lumpy, tasteless, discusting.

Do you think the recipe was not well written? the weird thing is I have 2 of Colette's books and this recipe appears in both, with the exact same explanation "Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and mix at a low speed..."
Maybe this is great moist delicious recipe for a Colette but for me was a total loss.

Thanks
Rosita Fresita

19 replies
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Kiddiekakes Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:17pm
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Hmm..I don't know what to say..I have never tried Colette's recipes but maybe soneone else can jump in and help!!

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Katie-Bug Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:18pm
post #3 of 20

Oh, lets see..
What or how were you mixing the batter?
You said it was tasteless and lumpy. Is would seem like the reason for the lumps would it not mixing good. Maybe I would try mixing it differently. Dry and then incoporate wet. The flavor, well I'm not sure there. With the coffee, it should have some. What other ingrediets went into it?

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Bethroze Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:21pm
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I have never tried her recipe, but I have one from Gale Gand off of Food TV that will blow your tastebuds away. It also calls for the hot coffee in the end. I use this recipe for almost all of my Groom's Cakes because it has a very adult flavor with the mocha creamcheese icing.

Chocolate Layer Cake

1 c. butter            1 tbs. baking soda
3 cups light brown sugar, packed    ½ tsp. salt
4 eggs            3 c. sifted cake flour
2 tsp. vanilla            1 1/3 c. sour cream
¾ c. unsweetened cocoa powder     1 ½ c. hot strong coffee
(I use Dutch Processed)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour three 9 cake pans. Cut 3 circles of waxed paper or parchment paper to fit the bottoms of the pans, and then press them in.

In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or using a hand mixer), cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and eggs and mix until fluffy, about three minutes. Add the vanilla, cocoa, baking soda and salt and mix. Add ½ of the flour, then ½ of the sour cream and mix. Repeat with the remaining flour and sour cream. Drizzle in the hot coffee and mix until smooth. The batter will be thin. Pour into the prepared pans and bake until the tops are firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in to the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Halfway through the baking, quickly rotate the pans in the oven to ensure even baking, but otherwise try not to open the oven door. Let cool in the pan 10 minutes. Turn out onto wire racks and let cool completely before frosting.


Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

½ c. butter
16 oz. cream cheese
8 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted
½ c. cooled coffee
4 tsp. vanilla
6 c. powdered sugar

In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Drizzle in the melted chocolate and mix. Add the coffee and vanilla and mix. Add the sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Mix until well blended and fluffy.

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babyscake Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:24pm
post #5 of 20

Try expresso. I would mix dry first and then wet little by little and add a min to the recipe mix.

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prettycake Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:27pm
post #6 of 20

I have tried Colette's Chocolate Cake recipe from her
Birthday Cakes (Blue Cake w/ Fishes - on cover).. The cake calls for
Bourbon Whiskey and coffee.. Don't know if this is the same recipe you tried. I liked this recipe and I was happy with the results..I changed it a little but by adding 1/2 tsp, of Baking powder in addition to everything else. How about trying it again ? and maybe doctor it a little bit.

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coffeecake Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:32pm
post #7 of 20

Thanks bethrose - that cake sounds great - I can not wait for a reason to make it - the cream cheese frosting sounds really yummy.

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delectablecakes Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:42pm
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Did the "Collette" recipe have any butter in it? Or was the crisco a substitution for butter? If so, was it butter flavored Crisco? I use oil in place of butter in my carrot cakes, but I've never used straight Crisco in cakes before.

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prettycake Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 6:48pm
post #9 of 20

The one i've tried called for butter. It is delicious.
The recipe in her Birthday Cakes book.. icon_smile.gif

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RositaFresita Posted 14 Aug 2006 , 7:32pm
post #10 of 20

Thanks so much Everyone
For coming into my subject and try to figure out what went wrong.
Bethroze Thanks so much for sharing the recipe with us. It sounds delicious, I will have to try it out.

The ingredients that were called for Colette's recipe are:

3 cups of flour
2 eggs (room temperature)
1 cup of milk (room temperature)
1 cup of crisco
2 cups of sugar
2 tbs of baking power
2 tbs of almond extract
1 tbs of vanilla extract
1 tbs of baking soda
1 tbs of salt
1 1/2 cups of hot strong coffee
1 cup of cocoa powder

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, except for the coffe, at a low speed, and slowly start pouring the hot coffee into the mixture. Bake at 350 degrees F. This cake was suppossed to be enough for 20 people.

The Mix all the ingredient part is what I thought it was crazy, but I followed the recipe. I think I should have used my common sense and cream the crisco first then add the sugar, then the eggs, then the dry ingredients, and maybe alternating with the hot coffee. I have another recipe that calls for coffee, but the coffee has to be cold, and the cake has turned out great.

Thanks so much.
Rosita Fresita

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butterflyjuju Posted 15 Aug 2006 , 5:20am
post #11 of 20

I have a chocolate cake recipe that calls for it to be all mixed together like that. Although in the recipe I have nothing requires being at room temp. And mine is to be mixed by hand or mixer, either it doesn't matter. Then you add hot water to it. It says to add all at once, not slowly. I've had good results with it.

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tw1nkle Posted 15 Aug 2006 , 12:56pm
post #12 of 20

I make Collettes' chocolate cake all the time and most people like it. I mix all the ingredients in together except I substitute the crisco for butter (for the simple reason that here in New Zealand we aren't able to get crisco icon_smile.gif )

I plonk all the ingredients except the coffee into the mixer and mix on low speed until all combined then turn it onto 3? maybe and dribble the hot coffee in down the side of the bowl while its still going.

The cake turns out dark and moist and most people who have tried it like it....

Just wondering if the substituting the crisco makes all the difference?

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marcimang Posted 15 Aug 2006 , 1:04pm
post #13 of 20

when I was deciding on my cake recipe I tried this one from Collette- I made 5 choc. cakes and I divided them and made a poll sheet, gave it to my neighbors and Collettes recieved the lowest votes- I am with you, if it works for her great but it didn't work for me!!!

HIghest votes was a box mix of duncan hines devils food and choc fudge

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leta Posted 15 Aug 2006 , 2:14pm
post #14 of 20

In my experience, anytime you add the flour in the bowl before the liquid, or at the same time, you must scrape the bowl very well a couple times.

Is that the complete instructions in the recipe? I'm surprised it doesn't give mixing times. and tell you to scrape the bowl. I also have never seen a recipe tell you to mix the entire time on low.

I would think you need to mix at low until combined, then turn up to med and mix for at least 1 1/2 mins up to 3 mins scraping the bowl 1 or 2 times.

I haven't used any of her recipes because many call for shortening and prefer the butter taste.

I recommend Toba Garrett's recipe for Choc Fudge cake. It's the best I've tried so far.

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RositaFresita Posted 16 Aug 2006 , 2:37pm
post #15 of 20

Good morning Ladies:
Thanks again for giving me your points of view.
At first I mixed the ingredients on a low speed because the mixture was so heavy I thought I was going to burn my mixer. As I slowly started to add the hot coffee I was able to increase the speed.
The chocolate cake was very dark, but like I said "tasteless". I think I prefer butter instead of crisco, and mixing the ingredients in a certain order works better for me, than adding them all at the same time.

Have a great day.
Rosita Fresita

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RositaFresita Posted 1 Sep 2006 , 3:12pm
post #16 of 20

Hi Bethroze:
I just made your chocolate cake recipe last night. I baked the cake into a 12" and 8" petal cake pan, because I was afraid it was going to be too much on the 12" pan. Both cakes came very short, I don't know if I should bake another batch to stack them and make a little bit taller cake.
What do you suggest?

Thanks
Rosita Fresita

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Bethroze Posted 5 Sep 2006 , 11:27am
post #17 of 20

Yes, I would probably do another batch. That recipe makes a very tall three layer 9" cake, but I doubled up on it for a groom's cake I made this weekend. The pans were 12" and 8" square. Everyone raved about the taste of the cake. Hope you enjoy it.
LL

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RositaFresita Posted 5 Sep 2006 , 1:51pm
post #18 of 20

Good morning Bethroze:
Congratulations on your beautiful cake, it looks marvelous!!!!
I make the chocolate frostin and I loved it. But I don't know what I did wrong for the cake, it was a little bit sticky. I can't describe it. But the texture was not like the one for a regular cake. I noticed that the recipe calls for baking soda, but not baking powder, do you think that was what it was missing?
The only other thing I can think I did wrong, was that I divided the dough into 2 cake pans, so both cakes came out very thin.

Please advise.
Rosita Fresita

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Bethroze Posted 5 Sep 2006 , 2:51pm
post #19 of 20

Hmmm...Sticky you say. Believe me, this cake is about as fluffy and tender as you can get while still being moist. The ingrediants ran together on the post I did earlier, perhaps it was confusing. I had trouble reading it myself when I checked back. No baking powder, but make sure you use a Tablespoon of baking soda. I always double check that because it seems like too much, but that is correct. The batter is very plentiful in the bowl and the texture of melted icecream with all the hot coffee poured in it.

I hope you will try again. Let me know if you need a different print out of the recipe.

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RositaFresita Posted 5 Sep 2006 , 7:08pm
post #20 of 20

Hi Bethroze:
I think now that I think back, I used a tsp. of baking soda. I will have to try this recipe again, and hopefully next time it will be a fluffier cake.
Thanks so much for responding to my message.
Rosita Fresita

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