Italian Chocolate Ruby Cake Food

RUBY CHOCOLATE CAKE RECIPE

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350ºF and prepare three 6-inch cake pans or two 8-inch cake pans by spraying the sides with cooking spray and fitting the bottoms with a wax paper or parchment cake circle.
• Place all of the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer and stir on low for 30 seconds to fully combine them. Add the vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk and mix on low until just combined. With the mixer still on low, add the hot (just boiled) water in a slow stream, then turn the mixer to medium and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. The batter will be very thin.
• Pour into prepared cake pans no more than 2/3 full and bake for 40-45 minutes, until a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.
• Add the ruby chocolate into a glass bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, then microwave for another 30 seconds. Stir until all the ruby chocolate is melted and there are no lumps. Alternatively, you can melt the ruby chocolate using a double boiler. Set aside to cool slightly.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on high until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Turn the mixer to low, add the powdered sugar, and mix until well combined. Scrape down the bowl and paddle, give the melted ruby chocolate a few stirs and make sure it's not hot enough to melt the butter (if it is still too hot, wait a few minutes before adding!), then add it in. Turn the mixer to medium speed and beat for 2 minutes, until the mixture is smooth. Add the vanilla, heavy whipping cream, and salt and beat for another minute on medium.
• Place the chopped ruby cacao into a glass or metal bowl and set aside. In a saucepan over medium-high heat, warm heavy whipping cream until it just starts to boil. I always look for small bubbles forming around the edge and a soft boil starting in the middle. When you see that it's just starting to boil, pour it over the ruby cacao bits and let sit for about 20 seconds.
• Whisk it together until it's uniform in consistency and there are no bits of chocolate left on your whisk. Add a drop or two of Americolor Fuschia or pink food color gel of your choice if you want (the natural ganache color turns out more beige-toned for some reason).
• Cool ganache at room temperature for about 30 minutes, or until the ganache itself is close to room temperature (a little warmer may be fine depending on how thin you like your drips).
• When the chocolate cake layers have cooled completely, torte them before filling and frosting with ruby chocolate buttercream. Chill the frosted cake in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes before dripping with the room temperature ruby chocolate ganache. It's always best to do a test drip on the cake before dripping the whole thing - that way you can see whether you need to cool the ganache more or gently warm it in the microwave before committing to dripping the rest of the cake.
• After dripping the cake with ganache, place it in the refrigerator for at least five minutes to let it set. To create the design pictured, place a few tempered ruby chocolate disks on top of the cake (I splatter painted mine with Americolor Bright White). Use the remaining ruby chocolate buttercream to pipe rosettes with Wilton tip 1M and stars with Wilton tip 4B wherever you desire!

ITALIAN RAINBOW COOKIE CAKE

Steps:

• Make the ganache: Place the chocolate in a medium bowl. Bring the cream and 1/2 teaspoon salt to a boil in a small saucepan, then pour over the chocolate. Shake the bowl so the chocolate is fully submerged in the cream, then let stand 1 minute. Using a small rubber spatula, slowly stir the chocolate and cream in the center of the bowl until it forms a shiny, smooth ganache. Cover the ganache with plastic wrap and let stand in a cool place in your kitchen until it is thick like pudding, but still pourable and spreadable, up to 2 hours. (See Cook's Note about timing.)
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cut three 8-inch circles out of parchment paper. Using 2 tablespoons butter, grease and flour three 8-inch round cake pans and line each pan with a round of parchment paper.
• Whisk the flour, baking powder and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl until evenly combined. Combine the sugar and remaining 14 tablespoons butter in the bowl of a mixer and beat on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the almond filling, lemon juice and almond and vanilla extracts and beat until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour mixture, then stir with a rubber spatula until the batter is combined.
• Divide the batter equally among 3 bowls. Add the green, yellow and red food colorings to the batter in their separate bowls, then stir the colorings. Scrape each batter into a prepared cake pan and smooth the top with a small offset spatula or rubber spatula. Bake until the cakes are lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the middle of each cake comes out clean, 20 minutes.
• Transfer the cake pans to a wire rack and let cool 15 minutes. Invert the cakes onto the rack, remove the cake pans and discard the parchment paper rounds. Let the cakes cool completely, about 30 minutes. Flip the cakes right-side up and trim the top of each cake with a serrated knife so that it is flat, if necessary.
• Place the green cake on a cake stand and spread 1/4 cup jam evenly over the top. Place the yellow cake over the green and spread the remaining 1/4 cup jam evenly over the top. Place the pink layer on top, then loosely wrap the cake in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• Unwrap the cake and scrape the ganache on top (the ganache will be the consistency of thick pudding). Using an offset spatula, spread the ganache evenly over the side and top of the cake, leaving a slightly thicker layer on top. Once the ganache is smooth all around, drag the tines of a fork in a wavy pattern across the top of the entire cake. Refrigerate the cake to set the ganache, about 30 minutes. Allow the cake to come to room temperature before serving.

ITALIAN CHOCOLATE RUBY CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350ºF.
• Grease a 10 inch spring form pan.
• Prepare cake mix according to package directions (necessary ingredients to prepare mix are included in the above ingredient list), and pour the prepared mix into the greased spring form pan.
• Press the Raspberry Newton cookies into the batter on their sides in a circular fashion like the spokes on a wheel about 3/4 to 1 inch in from the side of the pan (the cookie should be covered on all sides with batter, so it should not touch the side of the pan).
• The raspberry filling should be facing you not the sky if you placed them in correctly (in other words if the filling is facing upwards then you placed the cookies in on their ends not their sides) Use the entire package of cookies.
• If necessary, make a second smaller inner circle of cookies to use them all up.
• Being careful not to let the cookies fall down flat on their bottoms (if a few fall don't worry about it, when baked it will make for a more interesting pattern) place in preheated oven and Bake at 350ºF for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Remove from oven and cool for 20 minutes then remove the outside of the spring form pan and allow to cool the rest of the way completely.
• The cooled cake when sliced will have a beautiful pattern in it of red rubies edged in white from the cookies buried in the dark chocolate cake.
• To serve Slice, and wet each slice generously with the chilled sweet vermouth.
• While the vermouth really makes the flavor of this cake, adding the vermouth separately to each slice allows you to serve the cake without the vermouth to any children present.

ITALIAN CHOCOLATE WALNUT CAKE (FLOURLESS)

Steps:

• Pre-heat oven to 180°C.
• Lightly oil (or butter) a non-stick 20 cm springform pan; if yours is not non-stick, butter the bottom, line bottom with parchment paper, then butter the sides and the parchment as well.
• Melt the chocolate and butter in a heat-proof glass bowl over a pot of simmering water, stirring with a wooden spoon until both are completely melted and the mixture is smooth; take the bowl off the heat (and off the pan of water).
• Mix the instant coffee granules and 3 TBS cocoa powder into the chocolate mixture and set aside.
• In a large bowl, beat the eggs and the granulated sugar together for five minutes at high speed, until they are light in color and thickened.
• Grind 30 g of the walnuts in a spice or coffee mill until they become a fine powder.
• Coarsely chop the remaining walnuts.
• Stir the ground walnuts and walnut pieces into the egg mixture.
• Carefully fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture until they are completely combined (I like to use a glass bowl so I can see that I've done so).
• Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.
• Bake 40 minutes or until the top of the cake is dry.
• Turn the oven off, leaving the cake undisturbed IN THE OVEN to cool COMPLETELY.
• When the cake is cooled, remove from the oven.
• Remove the cake from the pan, remove parchment paper if used, and sprinkle with the reserved cocoa powder and powdered sugar.

CHOCOLATE ITALIAN CREAM CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 325*.
• Grease and flour three 8-inch layer pans; set aside.
• Separate eggs.
• Beat egg whites until stiff; set aside.
• Cream butter and shortening.
• Gradually add sugar to creamed butter, beating well.
• Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating until blended after each addition.
• In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa, and baking soda; add to butter mixture, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour.
• Beat at low speed until blended.
• Mix in vanilla.
• Stir in coconut and pecans.
• Fold in egg whites.
• Pour batter into prepared layer pans.
• Bake in hot oven for 25-30 minutes.
• Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then remove to wire racks and cool completely.
• For frosting, beat cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and cinnamon until blended.
• Sift powdered sugar and cocoa; gradually add to butter mixture alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with powdered sugar mixture.
• Beat at low speed for about 2 minutes until well blended and fluffy.
• Stir in pecans.
• Frost cooled layers with frosting, and garnish with whole pecans.