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Chocolate: Chocolate Snowball Cake

Source of Recipe

Pepper Byfield


List of Ingredients

2 C flour
1 C sugar
3/4 C brown sugar
3/4 C unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 C milk
2 eggs
1/2 C butter, softened
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 recipe 7 Minute Icing, recipe follows*
1 1/3 C shredded coconut, tinted pink, recipe follows**



Recipe


Preheat oven to 350° F and grease and flour two 8" - 9" round or heart shaped cake pans.

Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Make a well in center of dry ingredients, add remaining ingredients and mix at low speed until completely moistened. Increase speed and beat at high speed for about 3 minutes. Divide batter between the pans and bake for about 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for about 5 minutes, before inverting onto wire racks to cool completely.

After cakes have cooled, frost with 7 Layer Icing, and press tinted coconut on top and sides.

Hint:
To keep the cake plate clean while applying the icing and coconut, overlap to pieces of waxed paper, by about a third, in the center of the cake plate. Frost cake and apply coconut, then gently pull out the two pieces of paper and you have a finished cake and a clean cake plate!

FROSTING*
2 large egg whites
1 C sugar
1/4 C water
1 tsp. light corn syrup
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

Makes about 3 Cups (enough for 8" double layer cake)

With hand mixer, beat egg whites until foamy in the top of a double boiler, set about 2" from the simmering water. Beat in remaining ingredients and continue beating for about seven minutes (hence the name) or until temperature on a candy thermometer reaches 160° F and soft peaks form. Remove top of double boiler and continue to beat until stiff peaks form, about 4-5 minutes.

TINTED COCONUT**
Sugar tinted in a rainbow of colors is a handy item to have in the kitchen for adding a special decorative touch to cakes, cookies and other desserts. But why spend exorbitant prices buying sugar when you can easily make your own for much less. Doing it yourself also broadens your color palette considerably as you can custom blend the perfect shades to meet your needs. And keep in mind that the indentical technique also works for tinting coconut!

All you need are some small, heavy duty, plastic zipper bags, some sugar (or coconut) and some food colors. Paste colors work best, as it keep the sugar from getting overly soggy and it's easier to mix. Place the desired amount of sugar or coconut in the plastic bag, add a small dabof color on a toothpick. Close the bag and mix and shake until color is evenly distributed.

The secret to beautifully colored sugar is to take your time and make sure that all of the color is evenly distributed. Keep working the color through the sugar until you are sure there are no more concentrated little clumps left.