Let them eat cake!

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake with Mascarpone Whipped Cream (from Tish Boyle's wonderful and totally awesome The Cake Book), Blueberry Coulis Thing, and a Fresh Strawberry

Wee and I made this sometime in March when it was one of those really nice Saturdays. The Sour Cream Chocolate Cake came out nearly perfect. Had to buy expensive butter since we unfortunately ran short. Note: the bodega downstairs carries only whipped butter, and the "gourmet" bodega by the stand-up MRI is very expensive for food staples. We didn't want to make frosting, but something lighter and with ingredients we had on hand--like mascarpone. So impatient as I was, we assembled the cake, still warm; that didn't bode well for the cake or the whipped cream in between the layers though. The bottom sort of fell apart, so I pulled out the blueberry coulis thing I make for adding to yogurt (frozen blueberries, sugar, water--but now realize that water is unnecessary) and threw it on top to make the bottom layer soak and recongeal (I hoped). (Chocolate cake and blueberries didn't seem like a bad idea--but the water in the coulis made the coulis a lot thinner than I thought, and the cake absorbed it like a sponge.) Anyway, the top layer got there somehow with lots of help from Lisa, and I used what was left of the mascarpone to coat the top. We had fresh strawberries to really clean up the mascarpone whipped cream bowl. We also saved one to decorate the top--to make the cake look sexy. The layers of goodness weren't as defined as I wished, but the blueberries did add a nice surprise texture, and though it was whipped cream, it was mistaken for frosting as it hardened in the fridge into a taut kind of shell. But it was mistaken for a very light, not overly sugary frosting, which I guess is a neat trick.

I forgot how big whole cakes were--especially double layers. It lasted for about a week--giving about half to our family, an eighth to the Chins, and the rest for me. I think that week was when my waist-line expanded and never contracted like it used to. Crud.