Tuesday, April 1, 2014

April Fools!


Kitty litter cake!

So much fun to make and more fun to eat... pranking people with it is also rather amusing

The recipe I'm using today is inspired by the "Better than Sex Cake" recipe which is wildly famous (so it seems!) and it's quite tasty. Here's my spin on it.
Cake:  2 X the following recipe


Hershey's Black Magic Cake
(I baked this recipe twice and it yielded 2 long rectangular pans)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil  (I used butter flavoured EVOO From Olive That!) or grape seed oil 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (Or mix yogurt with water to a nice thick liquid creamy consistency) 

1 cup strong black coffee OR 2 teaspoons powdered instant coffee plus 1 cup boiling water (or just plain boiling water) 

Dry ingredients:
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Cocoa Powder 
2 cups sugar


1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk, warm slightly in the microwave for a couple of seconds so it's easy to pour. 


Directions

1. Heat oven to 350°F.  Lay a piece of parchment to fit the bottom of a 13x9x2-inch rectangular baking pan.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes (Batter will be thin). Pour batter evenly into prepared pan.

3. Bake 35 to 40 minutes for rectangular pan or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen cake from side of pan and remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.

For the second cake I removed from the oven and poked it all over with a skewer (not all the way through to the bottom) and then I poured some condensed milk (1/3 cup) by gently spooning some over the top and spreading it for the warm cake to absorb.

Set both cakes aside.

Salted Caramel Sauce: Recipe adapted slightly from Strawberry Chocolate Concoction 

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar

3 tbsp unsalted butter, cut in three squares from the stick 
(should but firm - from the fridge is fine, but not melty)

2/3 cup heavy cream

1/4 tsp sea salt (fleur de sel is best)

You can use raw cane sugar, which is a light brown color, which is why my caramel is a bit darker than if you were to start with white sugar

Instructions
Heat sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula.
Sugar will form clumps and eventually melt into a deep, golden-brown, amber-colored viscous liquid. At all times, be careful not to burn!
Once the sugar is all melted, immediately add the butter. The mixture will bubble, so do watch out. Stir until the butter has completely melted and is mixed well into the sugar.
Slowly pour in the heavy cream. Due to the reaction between the cold cream and hot sugar mixture, the final mixture will bubble vigorously. Allow the mixture to boil/bubble for 30 seconds. It will rise in the pan as it does so. Once again, watch that it's not burning!
Remove from heat and stir in salt.. Allow to cool.

Store in a tightly-capped jar in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Warm slightly before using again.

(You may have some leftover, which is ok) 


Whipping cream:

2 (500 ml) small cartons of heavy (35%) cream
3 heaping tbsp powder sugar
1 tbsp vanilla

(Whip all together in the blender or kitchen aid until it is fluffy but not too whipped, just softer peaks.)


Assembly

Prepare your food safe tub or container that resembles a kitty litter. Place a piece of parchment at the bottom and then set your first cake inside (the one without the sweetened condensed milk!)

Layer with half the whipped cream and drizzle caramel next.

The next layer of cake may have to be sliced horizontally into 2 layers if your container isn't a perfect square, otherwise there will be gaps as in my case where the tub got wider at the top and more narrow at the bottom.

I sliced the cake horizontally in a diagonal angle downwards from the middle and out to the side and was able to gently slide that piece over to cover the gap.  In the end it will look and taste delicious so no worries.


Another layer of whipped cream and more caramel.

At the very end and before serving sprinkle the entire top with toffee bits (skor?) and make sure no gaps are visible.  It will look exactly like kitty litter (more precisely the type I use which is corn litter by World's best cat litter)

Treat as a trifle and scoop pieces out.  It's absolutely delicious!










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