The concept of this cake was to feature a coffee my boss brought me as a gift.  However, the cake really kicked my butt.  It’s a mocha cake with mocha/coconut/rum ganache. 

The cake part is the Perfect All American Chocolate Butter Cake, made with really, really strong coffee rather than boiling water.  I made it to be one layer—same size as the PAAC Torte.

The ganache is the Midnight Ganache with two major changes:  (1) Really, really strong coffee instead of boiling water and (2) coconut flour and cocoa butter subbing for cocoa powder (I wanted to scale-back the chocolate flavor so the coffee flavor would stand out more).

It was nothing less than a monster hit.  Even my boss who usually has a very thin slice and eats half of it now and the other half through the day, had a whole thin slice and took another with her!  I loved it, and I was very skeptical about it—almost didn’t bring it in until some time after “the ordeal” passed!!!

Here’s the ordeal:

1.  I prepared my dry ingredients the night before.  I processed the sugar and the food processor sounded sort of funky.  Nonetheless, I pitched the sugar in with the flour, etc.  I processed the sugar for the caramel and put it in its pan for the next day.

2.  Luckily, I started with the caramel on Saturday morning, because when I added water to it, little plastic parts floated.  The food processor sort of ate itself for no apparent reason.  I had to throw out the sugar and all the dry ingredients—boy do I hate throwing stuff out!!!!

3.  I made the cake layer Saturday afternoon, and it was really flat.  I was only going to make one layer, because I only had two eggs.

4.  Meanwhile, the ganache had no intention of completely setting, so I melted more cocoa butter (had originally used 32% of the cocoa powder weight) and added it, with more vanilla beans, to the ganache.  Now it’s hard as a rock!!!

5.  Sunday, I had to go out and buy more eggs.  And I had to remelt the ganache to add more cream and more rum (yum).  Luckily, it made more than expected, so I had enough for two layers!!

6. Made the second layer (the top layer) with the following exeriment:  I used the whisk beater for blending in the last of the egg mixture (last 20 seconds of mixing).  It’s much higher.  Yes, I do see the little air pocket in my slice, though, so I consider the results undetermined at this time.

So, there it is!

WOW!!!!! Your cake looks so good! It is so tall, the frosting is great, as usual and it looks so light with a perfect crumb. I have to add, you are very inventive. That slice is amazing! Your boss just has to love it!

Yes, very very clever.  I am glad after all that potential frustration that it was a hit.

Your cake looks just perfect, and it sounds like everyone liked it a lot! 

So sorry about the food processor spewing off plastic bits, yikes!  It’s so fortunate that you caught it before making much of the cake.

I can see that using the whisk led to a little more height in your second layer, interesting.  Sometimes, when I’m making cupcakes from a butter cake batter and I want more fluff and volume, I do a sort of hybrid technique.  I use Rose’s mixing method, except I start out by creaming the sugar with the butter until lightened and fluffy, then add dry ingredients (which have been whisked by hand in a separate bowl) along with a portion of the wet ingredients (per the recipe) and continue with the standard method.  It works for cupcakes but I haven’t tried it with layer cakes.

What a gorgeous cake. Sounds delicious too….how can you go wrong with chocolate, coffee and rum!

Thank you, everyone!  I was very glad it was so good, because it was very trying!!

Julie, thanks for the suggestions on mixing method!

As a p.s., I didn’t grind the sugar (obviously, since the FP broke), and the cake texture was fabulous, so I may not replace the food processor at all.

Wow, this cake looks really good. And hats off for persevering and making such a spectacular cake!
How tall was the finished cake? It looks humongous.

Your cakes always look and sound so yummy Anne! Love your flavor combination!

Your cake sound deadly! I would have LOVED a slice of it. It looks really good too

Thanks again, everyone!

McB - I don’t know how tall it was.  But it always trips me out how flat each of these layers looked, but, when made into a two-layer cake, it was colossal in size.  Go figure.