Yesterday I attempted Rose’s Triple Chocolate Cake for my close friend’s birthday cake…her birthday is today.  She loves chocolate and I couldn’t help but try this cake.  My only defense…is I am a cookie maker!  Hehe…

For a beginner in the cake world this is my third attempt at a rose cake…and I think I botched this a little…sorry Rose.  I followed everything step by step for the Genoise and it seemed fine, but I didn’t test it at the 30 minute mark and left it in for 35.  I think it is a little overdone.  My hopes are that the syrup will moisten it a little.  I also realized I need to work on my folding technique.  I was trying to find somewhere on here how much you fold and how to do it, and I came up with very little.  I was worried about over folding and ended up with a few…very few pockets of flour.  I noticed this as I was slicing the top and bottom of the cake off. 

I did absolutely fine with the Light whipped ganache but my room temperature (I have all electric heat so I keep it cold 58-60 degrees)...therefore, the ganache became very thick and was hard to spread.  I put it in the refrigerator as well for a bit because between the baking of the cake and the assembly I had to run errands…next time I will cool the cake and put it together right away. 

So reading the above, when we get to the chocolate praline, you can imagine the difficulty…but to start with this, I did not process the praline enough…so the chocolate is not smooth…and for anyone whom has never made this before, when you go to break the praline to put in the processor it is sharp when breaking!  So upon mixing the praline flour into the chocolate, I realized I needed to process more, but at this point there was nothing I could do. 

When rolling and cutting, I should have reverted back to the photo on the cover.  I didn’t pay attention to the sizes of the rolled chocolate in relation to the height of the cake.  So some of my chocolate was much to high.  But I thought I would have fun and try to melt it curling over (this is where I should have looked at the picture again).  Trying to assemble this with one finger down was difficult.  Not to mention the heat factor, I do not have an 80 degree room.  I set up a space heater on my counter and had my blow dryer ready.  This was helpful, but when the chocolate got to warm, it was very difficult to get the second layer of the wax paper off.  There was a lot of breakage.  This also may have been because some of my chocolate was too thick, even though I rolled it thin.  However, I do have a tip…when the chocolate was in the was paper, I realized the 12” lengths were a lot for me to work with as a beginner…so I took out my kitchen scissors and started to cut the chocolate down, this was very helpful!  I think had I done that from the beginning, I would have had a much easier time.

By the end I was too tired to attempt any more decorating (and I have the start of an awful cold) so I was ready for clean up and bed.  So I finished the cake off with a simple heart shaped sprinkle of powdered sugar…I tried!

Hey, good for you!!! I have to be off somewhere momentarily, but wanted to say “well done.” Also to mention that the photo on the cover of the Cake Bible is a different cake, one called La Porcelaine. The Triple Chocolate Cake is pictured on page 26, one of the coloured plate pages inside the book. There! Feel better already?

What a great friend you are, to make this for your close friend’s birthday! I bet it will be delicious.

Very nice job.  Thanks for the tips on the temperature, we keep our house at 64/66 and it does have an affect on some of the icings.  Your friend is lucky to have someone put in so much work, what a great birthday present!

I think it’s a great looking cake!  To be honest, I think many have a hard time wrapping and draping the praline sheets, you’re in good company.  Did you all enjoy it?

I think it looks good too…and really, it’s all about how it tastes.  By the way…little pockets of flour are normal…just pick them out with a tooth pick.  Some where in the cake bible…Rose tells a story about that happening to her, and not picking them out…and someone thought they were nuts!  Don’t worry about it.  Sounds liket you did just fine.

Looks good.  Sounds fine to me.  Now, what cake are you baking next?

Adorable, and the best choc cake on the book, I love the experience of the 3 textures of chocolate!  Thx for such detailed accounts of room temp.the sheets drape beautifully at 80 to 85oF!!!  Below that, I really have a hard time, a hair dryer is quite a challenge even if suggested.

Thx again for reporting, and post a picture, it made me relieve great cake bible moments.

To everyone…Thank your for the comments…I delivered the cake yesterday and my friend couldn’t wait to bite into it!  She thoroughly enjoyed it!  I had a small bite (being sick I don’t crave sweets).  I found it very moist and light…but next time would try to get more of a dense chocolate cake!...Any suggestions?

I also thought the cake looks beautiful. And thanks for relaying your experience with the temperature - it’s really informative and helpful!

I’m planning on making it for a friend 30th birthday in 2 weeks. I made a test cake (6 inch) last month and it turned out pretty bad that I couldn’t even take a picture of it. I overprocess the ganache (it was too creamy - like butter). I also tried to make the chocolate sheet (without praline) and didn’t know about the temperature. Tried using the hair dryer, but it’s either too hot (melting the chocolate away) or not working. The end result is only one side of the circle having the chocolate sheet - it was not a pretty sight! The cake is delicious though and we ate it all. I still want to make it for my friend’s birthday.
But I think I want to go buy square 8 inch pan for the birthday. I think it would be easier to do chocolate sheet for a square cake.

My advice as doing this as a beginner…and thinking back on the chocolate sheets…

Roll the sheets shorter than 12”, do maybe 8”.  The look of the cake on the sides is layered, and the smaller sheets are much easier to handle as a beginner.  Also, the temperature is tricky, many times part of the sheet would get hotter than others causing it to melt on the sheet and stick.  The shorter sheets helped.  But one last tip…your hands generate heat.  I know you don’t want to handle the chocolate to much, but if you can get them a little warm, you can use the body heat of your hands to finish the molding.  Keep your kitchen scissors handy if you need to cut the sheets down still!

Jenn and schnacks143, I admire you both for attempting the praline sheets, I think they are beautiful- I love sculptural elements.  As another (easy) option, you can shape them on wax paper to fit the pan outline and layer them flat on the cake.  They just need a little ganache to cement them to the cake, and need to be cut/served at room temp so they aren’t too hard.  I used this method for my triple choc valentine’s cake on the Feb bake off thread, it worked well.

I wouldn’t attemp making a denser cake for the “24 oz chocolate” Triple Chocolate Cake.  I can see this on a all american butter cake, the same ganache, and cut down the amount of choc praline by making a chocolate lattice band with a thicker than usual pattern, then sprinkle the praline on the lattice prior it hardens (or heating the completed lattice band in the oven for a few seconds so the praline sticks to the chocolate).

My favorite chocolate cake now is the deep passion wedding cake.  It is a “denser” sponge cake.  If your add up the math, this cake has so much chocolate, as cocoa baked in the cake, milk chocolate syruped on the cake, then ganache, then a cocoa graze.  This plus the chocolate twigs, turns to effect a pentadriple choco cake!