Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting and Fresh Strawberries

It wasn't anyone's birthday but I made this cake because I have this dream to someday open up my own cafe. And I thought I'd better start figuring out which recipes are the best and then I'll know which ones to have available in my cafe. So I decided to make one special yummy dessert every month on a Monday night - Family Home Evening for us - which is a good excuse - this one tasted quite strong the first night - but by day two was quite excellent - some cakes need an extra day to let all the flavors blend. Plus, I had read a tutorial about how to frost a cake without running into that problem of crumbs mixing in with the frosting - which is a problem I've had in the past. And the secret is to brush the cake with simple syrup - I used a raspberry/apple flavored syrup like ranja (limonade) to get the same effect and it flavored it quite nicely and paired with the strawberries nicely, too. This cake was also nice because it wasn't too dense like Mark usually likes cakes to be and it's wasn't too moist like I like cakes to be - it was right in between which was a nice compromise for us - and the fresh berries just hit it right on! Even Oma and Opa came over for a slice - and said it was yummy - and sometimes my cakes are too sweet for them - but they loved it - hooray!

Comments

Audree_buttercup said…

The way I was taught to not get crumbs in your frosting is to do a 'crumb coat' you take a small amount of frosting to just get all surface coated, then refrigerate for like 15 mins to a half hour to let it set up-and then you can frost away. I find that better than using a syrup-unless you want to flavor the cake on purpose. Just makes it less rich. It looks delicious in the picture. You should post the recipe.

11:50 PM

The Tilted Kiln, St George, Utah... pottery and ceramics!

The Tilted Kiln
215 W St. George Blvd
435-275-6603
Hours: Tuesday - Friday 12:00-8:00; Saturday 10:00-6:00
www.thetiltedkiln.com
https://www.facebook.com/thetiltedkiln/

Today the children and I got to play with clay at The Tilted Kiln in St. George. I had driven past this pottery studio many times not realizing all the fun things it has to offer.

It's not just a pottery shop, though there is a section that some great local artists have pottery for sale. It has a section of ceramics that you can buy and paint yourself and they will cook it again after that.

That was fun to see. So many great ideas, from painting a large platter with the family name or something like "Dad's Burgers"to piggy banks and garden gnomes. They also had quite a few Christmas related ceramic crafts to paint.

My kids and I had so much fun browsing the ideas and we surely will find ourselves back in the shop come summer vacation! :)

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