Monday, February 1, 2010

The Zivah Lily Cake

My niece, Zivah Lily, was born on December 30th.  Her baby naming celebration was this past weekend.  For it, I decided to make a cake that was a little less ambitious than the one I made for her sister, but hopefully that would taste better.  It definitely did as that the other one pretty much tasted like cardboard frosted with butter. 

For this cake I found a recipe on Tastespotting for a Grasshopper cake (grasshopper like chocolate and mint, not like the bug in the grass.)
It called for three cake layers, with a filling of chocolate mint ganache and mint buttercream.

As with pretty much anything I make, there were issues.  For one thing, when the cake recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder, it is recommended that one uses 2 TEASPOONS of baking powder, not 2 tablespoons like I did.  Also, don't freeze heavy cream.  Or at least, if you do freeze it, check to see what happens when you defrost it before you intend to cook with it so you don't end up with half mixed frosting and a carton of something with the consistency of small curd cottage cheese. 

In any case, it came out really, really well.  I used clear creme de menthe rather than green and iced it in pink (cause it was for a girl...).  It was really rich and delicious.  Even I had a piece, and that's saying something.