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Chocolate: Chocolate Cake and Rum Buttercream

Source of Recipe

"The Christmas Kitchen" by Lorraine Bodger


List of Ingredients

Rum Butter-cream Frosting:
1/2 cup rum
3/4 cup sugar
1 & 1/2 teaspoons corn syrup
6 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 & 1/2 cups butter

Cake:
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup sugar, superfine
6 tablespoons butter, clarified
1/2 cup almonds, toasted and chopped
4 vanilla wafers
30 almonds, chocolate coated

Almond Chocolate Mousse :
1/2 cup Heavy cream
7 teaspoons sugar
8 ozs. chocolate, semi-sweet
1 & 1/4 cups Heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon Almond extract.


Recipe

Prepare Rum Butter-cream frosting: Heat rum, sugar, and corn syrup in saucepan over low heat, stirring gently, until sugar dissolves. Wash down sides on pan with pastry brush dipped in ice water. Clip candy thermometer to side of pan, raise heat to medium, and boil without stirring until syrup registers 240*F (soft ball stage) Remove syrup from heat and allow to cool slightly.

In a large bowl beat egg yolks and vanilla until mixture is pale and thick and falls in a ribbon when you lift beaters. Add hot syrup yolks by pouring down side of bowl a little at a time.Beat well after each addition. Let yolk mixture cool. Add softened butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition. Frosting should be thick and perfectly smooth. Use butter-cream as soon as possible, or refrigerate up to 3 days. When ready to use, bring to room temperature and beat until smooth.

Prepare Cake: Preheat oven to 350*F. Prepare two 9" cake pans by greasing them and lining bottoms with wax paper circle, greasing wax paper and dusting bottoms and sides with flour. Mix together flour, salt and cocoa and set aside.

Bring eggs to room temperature. Combine eggs, vanilla essence and almond extract a large deep bowl places in shallow bowl of hot tap water. Beat with an electric mixer until light and thick and quadrupled in volume. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar at a time, beating continuously. Continue beating until mixture is thick and airy, like soft whipped cream, and a thick rope of batter falls and site on top of mixture for a few seconds when you lift beaters.

Gently fold in 1/4 of flour mixture. Repeat with remainder of flour, 1/4 at a time. Remove 1 cup of batter to separate bowl and whisk in clarified butter. Stir in chopped almonds. Return mixture to remaining batter, 1/4 cup at a time, folding in gently but thoroughly. Divide batter evenly between two prepared pans. Bake 25 - 30 minutes.

When cake is done, center will spring back lightly when pressed, and cake will be pulling away from sides of pan. Let cake layers cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes, then run a knife round each layer. Turn out, peel of waxed paper, and turn right side up on racks to finish cooling. When cool, wrap each layer individually in plastic and freeze for 1 hour.

Prepare Almond Chocolate Mousse: Finely chop chocolate. Scald cream with sugar, stirring to dissolve. Pour hot cream over chopped chocolate and stir until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool completely. When cool, whip cream with almond extract just until stiff. Do not overbeat. Fold whipped cream into chocolate mixture. Use immediately.

To assemble cake: Slit each cake layer in half horizontally to make 4 thin layers. Place one layer of cake on a serving platter, cut side up. Tuck strips of waxed paper under cake to keep platter neat while assembling and decorating cake. Spread first layer with 3/4 cup of frosting, then 3/4 cup of mousse.

Repeat with remaining layers, cut sides down, making a stack, ending up with frosting. Use remaining mousse to cover top and sides of cake. Process vanilla wafers to fine crumbs. Sprinkle some over top of cake, then blow some from your hand onto sides of cake. Use a generous amount, as first layer of crumbs will darken as crumbs absorb moisture from cake.

Press chocolate almonds around top edge of cake to complete decorations. Serve immediately, or put cake, uncovered, in freezer for 1 hour, until very firm, then cover with plastic wrap and return to freezer until one hour prior to serving.