When our friends Jim and Colleen invited us over for dinner last weekend, I decided it was time to revisit seven layer cake. Jim has expressed a nostalgic fondness for this cake on several occasions, and it was on the short list of candidates for his 40th birthday. Jim didn't care for an eight-layer version I previously made, so I decided to try another recipe from Tish Boyle for "Seven" Layer Cake.
Unnecessary quotation marks are one of my pet peeves, but I don't mind that Boyle calls this dessert a "Seven" Layer Cake -- because the composed cake is actually comprised of eight layers. To make the batter, you beat softened butter until creamy; add sugar and beat until light; add egg yolks and vanilla; alternately add the dry ingredients (cake flour, baking power, and salt) and milk; and fold in egg whites that have been beaten with cream and tartar and sugar until they form stiff peaks. You bake the cake in a single layer in a half-sheet pan.
Boyle suggests using either her "Silky Chocolate Buttercream" or her "Fudgy Chocolate Frosting" for this cake. It was hard for me to decide, because they both sounded delicious. I went with the buttercream which is described in the headnote as having "a light, silky texture and an intense chocolate flavor."
To make the frosting, you start by beating egg yolks and slowly adding in sugar syrup that has been heated to 238 degrees. You continue beating the mixture until cool, slowly added softened butter, and finally mix in a cooled mixture of melted bittersweet chocolate and water. The finished frosting was perfectly smooth and creamy.
To assemble the cake, you trim off the edges of the cooled cake sheet and cut it crosswise into four strips. Then you split each strip of cake into two layers. I used my Agbay leveler for this task and I can't imagine how I could have done it otherwise; the cake was only about a half-inch tall, so splitting it into ultra-thin layers requires more precision than I can muster without a leveler. The frosting spread beautifully and it was easy to get a thin coating on each piece of cake and stack the layers on top of one another. I had enough frosting leftover to pipe a shell border around the edges of the cake and across the top.
The cake also cut beautifully, and the frosting did a great job of gluing the cake layers together to keep each slice intact for serving. This cake was delicious. I liked it better than the previous six-layer and eight-layer cakes that I've made. The cake itself was dense and springy, and it was very moist. The frosting was silky, light, and delivered a beautiful clean chocolate flavor. This was a terrific dessert all around and I'm happy to have found a go-to recipe for seven- (okay, eight-) layer cake!
Recipe: "'Seven' Layer Cake" from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle.
Previous Posts:
Unnecessary quotation marks are one of my pet peeves, but I don't mind that Boyle calls this dessert a "Seven" Layer Cake -- because the composed cake is actually comprised of eight layers. To make the batter, you beat softened butter until creamy; add sugar and beat until light; add egg yolks and vanilla; alternately add the dry ingredients (cake flour, baking power, and salt) and milk; and fold in egg whites that have been beaten with cream and tartar and sugar until they form stiff peaks. You bake the cake in a single layer in a half-sheet pan.
To make the frosting, you start by beating egg yolks and slowly adding in sugar syrup that has been heated to 238 degrees. You continue beating the mixture until cool, slowly added softened butter, and finally mix in a cooled mixture of melted bittersweet chocolate and water. The finished frosting was perfectly smooth and creamy.
To assemble the cake, you trim off the edges of the cooled cake sheet and cut it crosswise into four strips. Then you split each strip of cake into two layers. I used my Agbay leveler for this task and I can't imagine how I could have done it otherwise; the cake was only about a half-inch tall, so splitting it into ultra-thin layers requires more precision than I can muster without a leveler. The frosting spread beautifully and it was easy to get a thin coating on each piece of cake and stack the layers on top of one another. I had enough frosting leftover to pipe a shell border around the edges of the cake and across the top.
The cake also cut beautifully, and the frosting did a great job of gluing the cake layers together to keep each slice intact for serving. This cake was delicious. I liked it better than the previous six-layer and eight-layer cakes that I've made. The cake itself was dense and springy, and it was very moist. The frosting was silky, light, and delivered a beautiful clean chocolate flavor. This was a terrific dessert all around and I'm happy to have found a go-to recipe for seven- (okay, eight-) layer cake!
Recipe: "'Seven' Layer Cake" from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle.
Previous Posts:
- "Eight is Too Much: Empire Torte," November 16, 2013.
- "Giving it 86%: Seven-Layer Cake," March 2, 2011.
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