Eggless Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream...for Wilton Course 2


Although I bake a lot of cakes, I have never really paid much attention to decorating them. But my daughter's second birthday is coming up soon and I want to make something special for her. I thought it would be great to learn something new, so I finally enrolled for the Wilton course last September.
I made this chocolate cake for the final class of course 2. We worked with royal icing and it was really fun. Royal icing dries up hard and the flowers look lovely! I made about 75 flowers for the final class, couldn't stop myself, that's how much fun I had making them. Another thing I learned was the basket weave design, it takes some patience but so worth it!



The cake had to be covered in buttercream but I did not want to use the wilton buttercream as its made of shortening and I did not like it at all. So I googled and found this amazing recipe for chocolate buttercream at BakedBree and it tasted absolutely divine. This buttercream is great for piping too and you can do all sorts of designs. The only challenge is doing it quickly or the warmth from your hands will make it soft, making it very difficult to work with. One trick is to fill the piping bag with only a little icing at a time and refilling as you go.



This is the cake I made for the final class of course two. It was a small 6" cake. The chocolate cake recipe is from Tarla Dalal. I doubled the below recipe to make two cakes. I had some batter leftover after filling two pans about 2/3's full, so next time I will probably divide the batter among three pans and make a triple layer cake. I filled the cake with a thin layer of buttercream and some strawberry preserves and crumb coated the cake before doing the basket weave. Decorated it with a few royal icing flowers. This was a cake I was really happy with!

Eggless Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
2 tbs cocoa powder
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
200 gms condensed milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F/ 180C. Grease and dust a 6" pan.
Whisk all the dry ingredients together to combine. Whisk all the wet ingredients together in another bowl and add to the dry ingredients.
Stir just until combined. Pour into the prepared pan and bake till done. Check after 25 mins. Mine took a little longer.
Cool in the pan for 10 mins and then remove onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Eggless cakes sometimes are not very moist, so I followed this idea from Bakerella. I wrapped the cake in plastic wrap as soon as I took it out of the pan, when still hot. Then cooled it completely on the wire rack. You won't believe how moist the cake was.


Chocolate Buttercream
Ingredients:
1 cup (two sticks) of unsalted butter at room temperature
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbs heavy cream or milk (cream is better)

Method:
Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
Add the cocoa powder gradually on low speed.
Add just enough cream to get the buttercream to a spreading consistency.
Add the vanilla.
Ice your cake as needed.

The buttercream for the basket weave has to be really stiff so I took some aside before adding the cream to the  rest of it, that I used to fill and crumb coat the cake.


This goes to Let's Cook - Sweet Somethings and Chocolate Mela

       

41 comments:

  1. OMG. Looks so nice . I cant take my eyes from that basket. First time here. Happy to follow you.

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  2. awesome super looking cake...droolling me...i love ur design...nothing to say....

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  3. wow!!visual treat dear...delicious cake and beautiful flowers!!gud job!

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  4. What a lovely cake Poornima!! Love the basket weaving decoration and you have done it so beautifully!! I am still wondering how the 'weaving' design takes place..i have never decorated a cake but would love to!

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    1. Thanks Shireen. There are step by step instructions on the Wilton site for the basketweave design. Cake decoration is so much fun, I'm sure you would love it too!

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  5. wow, very well decorated. awesome it is :)

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  6. Cake looks wonderful :) Nice Basket wave cake..you done it perfectly!!

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  7. The cake is absolutely breathtaking! It is on par with a professional store-bought cake. I loved the basket design and the colourful flowers. Really a great job, Poornima. I bet it tasted heavenly as well. :)

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  8. nice to read about an eggless chocolate cake...the cake looks really moist..

    i am hosting the Kerala Kitchen event for the month of Feb 2012...do send in some recipes..

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  9. Wat a gorgeous and beautiful cake,elegant!

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  10. Looks wonderful.It seems the course was truly worth it..Btw,Many Happy returns for your little princess !

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  11. wow..what a cake..looks awesome

    Aarthi
    http://www.yummytummyaarthi.com/

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  12. Beautifully done, Poornima..I still use my royal icing flowers which i made from my class for decoration only..Yummy cake

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  13. Poornima I'm in love with that cake and sure your cutie is gonna have loads of fun cutting her mom's cake soon. Such a lovely decoration and great tips to follow. This one inspire me to do more on decoration.

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  14. Beautiful oh wish we had a wilton course here but alas we donn't, my sis also went once for a wilton course and she loves it, this cake looks super yummy .

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    1. Thanks Finla, I don't think you really need any classes. By the looks of your cake pops, ur an expert already:)

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  15. hats off to u dear...........beautiful cake and perfect perfect proffessional touch....

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  16. those flowers are sooooo prettyyy!

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  17. hwy do you bring these cake home and eat them? I have just joined the basics course 1 now! Just wanted to know

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    1. Hope you are having fun in class. There is so much baking in the first course. Manoj took all the cakes I made for the course with him to work the next day, so he could share it with his colleagues. We didn't have more than one piece ourselves!!

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  18. Wow...you have become pro dear...lovely and awesome looking cake....

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    1. Thank you so much Lubna, I'm far from being a pro though:)

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  19. This chocoleat cake with weaved design is really breathtaking, glad to discover your blog.

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  20. This is so good, I'm sure ur daughter must have been so happy seeing this..loved the weaved look..do share any turorial of it, if you can..

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  21. Wow this is gorgeous... very professional

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  22. Hi poornima, first time here...cant take my eye off that gorgeous cake...classic beauty...YUM! happy to follow u.

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  23. i had seen this beautiful cake a few days ago. that was my first visit to your blog. i was like.... wow.... i did not have words to write.

    i was waiting to get some free time so that i can comment properly.

    finally you wrote a comment on my space and here i am. thanks for that.

    i was wondering how you did the beautiful weave on the cake. it looks so professional with the flowers and everything. great work.

    i do bake cakes, but never decorate them. we just have them plain.

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    1. Thank you dassana. I too don't decorate every cake I make but I enjoy decorating the occasional ones!

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  24. i had seen this beautiful cake a few days ago. that was my first visit to your blog. i was like.... wow.... i did not have words to write.

    i was waiting to get some free time so that i can comment properly.

    finally you wrote a comment on my space and here i am. thanks for that.

    i was wondering how you did the beautiful weave on the cake. it looks so professional with the flowers and everything. great work.

    i do bake cakes, but never decorate them. we just have them plain.

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  25. This one is really looking delicious! As I am totally surprised to see this Eggless Chocolate Cake. It's really looking one of most mouthwatering stuff. As I have found one of promising direction to make the same one. Thanks for sharing.

    scrapbooking albums

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  26. Hi Poornima, Thank you very much for this great recipe. I baked this cake for my son's birthday, and everyone loved it. The cake tasted really good and the chocolate buttercream icing added just the right touch. My cake didn't look anything like yours though. I have a long, really long way to go in the cake decorating department. As a relative novice at baking though, I am thrilled with the results, and determined to do some more baking. Thanks again.

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    1. Thank you so much Cynthia, your comment really made me so happy. Belated wishes to your son. Glad you all liked the cake. Hope you bake a lot more, its a great stress buster! Cake decorating takes a lot of practice, you can only do better each time:)

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  27. Poornima, not sure how I missed commenting on this, looks awesome and love that basket design looks excellent!

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  28. Amazing! The weaving design in your cake really looks cool! Can't wait to try this. Thanks!

    Regards,
    Haley McAdams
    Food Manager Certification Texas

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  29. Hi Poornima, This is SO beautiful!
    I am doing the Wilton course and my course 2 final cake is this weekend, I am so glad I did the course and I was in 2 minds about making chocolate buttercream frosting, looking at your cake I am motivated to make the same!

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