Pintertest Kitchen: BHG Chocolate Sour Cream Cake and Milk Chocolate Buttercream

So.
My mom's birthday was Easter weekend this year.  I offered to make her cake and bring it with us when we went to visit for the holiday.  She told me I could make whatever cake I wanted.  Well, that was a challenge!  Knowing that I had a bunch of things pinned (and striking out with something that took my fancy in my TOH cakes magazine), I started looking for something to make.  I eventually chose these 2 pins:

How could they not be a good combination?  I present to you now Better Homes and Garden's Chocolate Sour Cream Cake and Comfortably Domestic's Milk Chocolate Buttercream:

For the Cake:

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1-1/2 c flour
1/3 c cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter
1-1/4 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 oz. bittersweet chocolate
8 oz sour cream
1 c milk

Method:
1.  Let eggs stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease and flour 2-9" pans.  Set aside.  Melt chocolate and set aside to cool.
2. In a bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda, and salt.  Set aside.  Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  Beat in sour cream and chocolate.  Alternatively add flour mixture and milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (3 parts).
3.  Bake 25 minutes, or until tops spring back when lightly touched.  Cool 10 minutes in the pans, then turn out and cool completely on a wire rack.

From Better Homes and Garden

For the Icing:

Ingredients:
1 c butter, softened
2-1/2 c icing sugar
4- 45g milk chocolate bars (such as Jersey Milk)
1/4 c heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla

Method:
1.  Chop the chocolate bars and melt, setting aside to cool completely.  Stir vanilla into the cream.
2.  Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add cream and vanilla to into the butter, and when incorporated, fold in the melted chocolate.  Increase the mixer's speed to medium high, and beat for 3-5 minutes until light and increased in volume.

From Comfortably Domestic

Here's my bittersweet chocolate choice.  If you want a good final product, start with good ingredients.  You can't do much better than Lindt.

The batter for the cake was thick, and it scooped, rather than poured.  It was easy to work with and went together fast.

I decided not to ice the cake until after travel, so I took the 2 layers on a cookie sheet to cool.  They didn't quite fit on the rimmed sheet, but the layer that was crunched a little and sitting up on the rim didn't really suffer for the treatment.  It's a sturdy cake that travels well.

Remember how last year I went to my mother's and made white chocolate buttercream, burning the chocolate in my mother's new microwave?  Yeah, I haven't learned anything.  See the burnt chocolate in the middle of my melted chocolate bars?  I still don't know how to melt chocolate at my mother's.  Next year, I'm making caramel.  It's got to be easier.  Sigh.

Here is the whipping icing.  It was so light and fluffy when it was done.  I was afraid that there wouldn't be enough for filling and icing the cake, but I was wrong.

See?  There was lots of icing to both fill and cover the cake.

Happy birthday, mom!  This cake was delicious, and perfect with a glass of milk.  We had 3 pieces Saturday, and took the rest to Easter dinner on Sunday.  4 pieces came home (The cake was sliced into 17).  Mom didn't send any home with us.  I'd say she liked it too.







Today, I'm keeping up with the Johnsons in the Pintertest kitchen!  You should too!