Monthly Miettes : Tomboy Cake
Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 11:12AM 
My friend Aimee over at Food Je t'Aimee came up with nifty idea to start a monthly baking challenge using the lovely Miette bakebook by Meg Ray. Aimme says, 'The book, in a word, is darling. The pages, scalloped and glossy. The photos, stunning. The recipes, challenging, but enticing. The instant I laid my eyes on it, I knew I had to try and create beautiful cakes like the ones in Miette.'
Aimee writes, 'Having signed up for so many blogging events out there last fall, I decided it was high time that I begun my own. So I wrote to Meg and told her about my idea for a blogging challenge called Monthly Miettes. She wrote back saying that she dug the idea. I was elated! I wanted it to be easy to participate - the recipes themselves are challenging enough and Lord knows I don't have much time these days! - so the rules are quite straightforward. Buy the book. Make one cake per month along with me and then post about it. Link back to this post. Let me know you've posted by leaving me a comment, and I'll do a round up the following month. That's it!'
Aimee also writes, 'For the first month, I've chosen the cover recipe: Tomboy Cake. You have from now until March 25th, 2012 to submit your post. Wait - there's one more rule! When you make your cake, you must, must eat a slice for breakfast, along with a steaming mug of coffee (or whatever it is you drink to wake up!).'
Mmmmmm... cake for breakfast. I'm in!!
From Miette.com - The Tomboy gets its name from the unfinished, but decidedly feminine, way that we decorate this cake. It starts with our double-chocolate cake and is layered with vanilla buttercream. Our buttercream is made the European way, starting with Italian meringue and adding pure Straus butter. The result is luxuriously smooth and not too sweet. The cake and frosting together are perfectly balanced and proportioned.
The cake was delicious - moist and super chocolatey. The Italian Meringue Buttercream was actually pretty easy to make and was lightly decadent however, the book is not well-edited and so confusing that I'm not sure how anxious I am to try another recipe.
For example, the recipe for Vanilla Buttercream has major continuity issues. A small paper insert is included inside the book that note's the corrections to be made which would be fine and dandy if the information on the card was correct. In one section you are told to heat the simple syrup for the buttercream to 248 degrees yet in another section it reads 238 degrees. That's a huge discrepancy when you are talking about stages of cooked sugar. Since the recipe calls for 6 sticks of butter I wanted to do some research before I possibly wasted good ingredients. I landed on this awesome video by CakeLove's Warren Brown to clarify how to correctly make the buttercream and it turned out beautifully.
The recipe for the Double Chocolate Cake was clear and straightforward. One of the steps involves straining the incredibly lumpy batter through a fine to medium mesh sieve. This took about 20 minutes and was, quite frankly, a pain in the ass, however, i feel it was worth it because the cake batter had the consistency of a silky chocolate pudding and baked into an incredibly moist and supple cake. The recipe is portioned to bake two six-inch round cakes, each cut into three layers. I couldn't find six-inch cake pans, so I used two eight-inch cake pans, cut each in half and made one four-layer cake.
One tip from the recipe that I thought was really great is to dust the inside of your greased cake pans with cocoa instead of flour - no white residue left on the outside of the baked cakes!
Despite the inconsistencies in the Buttercream recipe, I will most likely participate in next month's Miettes - everyone that tried this cake loved it and that really is the main thing isn't it?
Reader Comments (6)
Your Tomboy is elegant! The rose buds are a delight! My cake was plagued with crumbs while yours seems crumb free! Any sage advise on making that decadent, delicious chocolate cake? I am glad I participated in the Miette challenge and look forward to next month.
Your cake came out lovely! I, like Deb, had issues with tons of crumbs and the sides somewhat ruined... Yours looks perfect. I agree the sieve process was a PITA but I did think it made a difference in the texture. Loved the challenge, look forward to next month.
Thank you ladies! It was definitely a fun challenge and I'm really looking forward to seeing Aimee's round up post. My luck with the crumbs was two-fold I think. I made the cakes on Tuesday and then froze them until Saturday. When I sliced them, they were still partly frozen in the middle - I used a long sharp serrated knife on a makeshift 'turntable' (a round pizza pan on top of an upturned bowl). After they were halved I held them over the sink and (quite aggressively) brushed off a TON of crumbs. I probably could have kept going but you have to stop at some point! The recipe was very clear about crumbs being the enemy so I did my best to get rid of as many as possible before I piped my buttercream. Hope this helps!! :)
My goodness: This has got to be the prettiest cake ever. Ever!! I love your touches - those dried flowers are just so sweet - as well as your feedback. It's all helpful for anyone else who tries these recipes and feels inspired by the versions we make at home. Maybe we can go shopping for cake pans together - I've heard of a few places that carry that size! Thank you so much for participating! xo
Oh my goodness! Looks so Yummy!! wish I could of had a taste!