Chocolate Cake with Swiss Meringue Butter Cream Frosting

What would we do without our mothers? There would be no encouraging advice, no one to remind you how important it is to breathe, and, most importantly, no one who unconditionally loves you no matter what terrible things you say or do (you know there have been several of those unbearably appalling and humiliating incidents you couldn't admit to anyone but your mother).
Well, after all these years of cleaning up messes, finding my missing Tetty Bear, and getting me out of sticky situations, my mom deserves some kind of badge of honor. Even better, she deserves a cake! Not a light, wimpy, desperate-housewives-style cake, but a real moist, dense chocolate cake. With her favorite vanilla butter cream frosting.
So, instead of delivering breakfast to my mother in bed, like most good daughters do, I decided to jump out of bed and whip up her favorite cake. Was it brought to her in bed? No. But, something tells me she can live with that.
This cake almost makes up for my painful attempt at a handmade vase in ceramics class. Another great thing about mothers: no matter how desperately awry your artwork has gone, they will treasure it more than a diamond ring.


So, it was also her 49th birthday. Who says you can't kill two birds with one stone? :)


Yes, it IS as delicious as it looks.



Ingredients:

Chocolate Cake:
Adapted from: Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake (aka, a taste of heaven)

2 Cups Sugar
1 3/4 Cups all purpose Flour
3/4 - 1 cup Dutch-processed Cocoa powder (depending on how sinfully chocolate you prefer your cakes)
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Eggs
1 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
2 Teaspoons Vanilla extract
1 Teaspoon Chocolate extract
1 Cup boiling water

Swiss Meringue Butter Cream Frosting:
Original creation by: Alex Nierlich

1 Cup (2 sticks) Of butter, softened but still cold.
3 Egg Whites
3/4 Cup granulated sugar
1- 1/4 cups powdered Sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make The Cake!
Preheat oven to 350 F, butter two 9 inch round cake pans
1. Combine Sugar, Flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium mixing bowl
2. Add milk, eggs, oil and extracts. Beat on medium speed until evenly combined, around 2 minutes
3. stir in 1 cup of boiled water. Batter will be thin. The boiling water is to bring out the richness of the cocoa powder, and also moisten the cake.
4. Pour half the batter into each cake pan, and put them in the pre-heated oven for 27-31 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out dry, with a few crumbs clinging to it.
5. Completely cool cake before frosting

Make The Frosting!
1. Separate three eggs, and put the whites in a small saucepan. Add granulated sugar to the saucepan with the egg whites. Over low heat, stir the egg white and sugar mixture until the sugar has completely dissolved.
2. transfer egg whites into large mixing bowl, and beat on high speed until glossy and peaks form (do not over beat!. This takes time, around 8-10 minutes.
3. Beat in butter. The butter will curdle at first, just keep beating the frosting until completely smooth and creamy. This will also take around 6-8 minutes.
4. Beat in powdered sugar and vanilla extract until frosting is smooth and there are no lumps.
5. Frost the flat side of each layer, then place sliced strawberries on one layer. Flip the other layer on top, creating your double layer cake.
6. Frost a thin crumb layer over the entire cake, then, let it harden slightly and frost a thicker layer of frosting. Smooth with rubber spatula. Your cake is now ready for eating!