I spent all night (after coming home from work at 9:30 pm) baking two 9 inch layers of the Grand Marnier Wedding cake for my mom’s birthday and 35 minutes into baking, I realized I forgot to fold in the chocolate chips!!! I am sooo soooo sad… Has this ever happened to anyone? Should I proceed with the cake as is? It’s a waste of a lot of ingredients… but then again, it’s not the Grand Marnier cake without the chocolate chips : ( And I only need two 9 inch layers. I wasn’t going to make any other layers…. Do you think the cake will still taste great without the chips? Am I kidding myself?
Even if no one has suggestions, that’s OK because I really just needed to vent! I can’t believe I did this!
You could add the chips to the buttercream filling you are using or even sprinkle them onto the surface of the cake before you put the buttercream on if you’d rather have a creamy smooth buttercream filling rather than one with the chips in it (neither one of these ideas will help with the top layer); you could use them as garnish when you plate the cake for serving…..
Or you could pour a nice chocolate mirror glaze over the whole cake, or put a thin layer of a very dark chocolate ganache over each layer before frosting.
Personally, I don’t like hard chunky chips in cake, anyway, so I’d be a big fan of your cake as is!!!!!!!
Thank you for your replies! I was planning to fill and frost the cake with chocolate ganache, so I think I will just add the chocolate chips between the middle layers, along with the ganache and then garnish with some chips as well. I wish I had the les perles. I wouldn’t have forgotten to add those to the batter! I will let you know how it comes out! : )
I think you will be fine with putting frosting in ganache. I had a relative not eat the Grand Marnier because it had chips….. not being a fan of mixed texture like that.
@ Jeanne- do you recommend any buttercream frostings that will pair well with this cake, instead of the chocolate ganache? You got me curious now… I might as well experiment some more..
It’s been a while since I made this; usually when we use Grand Marnier at work, we are using it in a vanilla cake (grand marnier syrup), a strawberry buttercream with chopped fresh berries mixed in, then a layer of orange buttercream with Grand Marnier in it. I am not sure if a fruity buttercream would work; but a chocolate one could, and with the mini chips either mixed in or sprinkled on the cake, it would give you some crunch. (People love our Heath Bar Crunch buttercream because they never expect crunch in buttercream. It’s so popular we do an almond joy version with almond cake, spread with ganache, chopped toasted almonds on the ganache and then coconut buttercream; candy is fun to play with!)
Thank you everyone.. I ended up just making the Chocolate Ganache. I have ANOTHER issue now: I made the cakes late Monday night thinking the birthday dinner was Thursday night. Well, then it got pushed to Friday, then, Sat and now Sunday. All this time the cakes are in the refrigerator. I did not freeze them because the Cake Bible says they are good in the refrigerator for about a week. But now I am really worrying because I’ve never served a cake that was made 6 days in advance. Do you think it will be OK? Does the cake really last that long? It’s for my mom’s birthday.. not a wedding or anything like that. Thanks again…
As long as you used the full amount of grand marnier called for and it’s frosted and covered airtight, you should be fine. If you’d feel better freezing it, that would be fine, too. Either way, leave plenty of time for it to come fully up to room temp, six hours or so at least for the refrigerated cake, and if frozen put it in the fridge overnight to begin thawing.
Andrie318 I have left ingredients out a few times so I know how frustrated you must feel. Your cake sounds like it will be perfect anyway. Don’t worry. Happy Birthday to your Mom.
Here is a pic of the cake. I ended up making 5 mini cakes of three layers each. My mom loved it (and so did I). It is really delicious even 6 days later… It definitely needs to be eaten at room temperature (thank you for that tip!). This is now one of my favorite cakes! I didn’t miss the chocolate chips inside the cake at all… they taste so yummy layered between the ganache filling!
Your cake looks great, adrie318! I’m so happy things turned out well for you, especially after dealing with the issues you were concerned about early in the process. What you once thought was something that might ruin the cake turned out to be quite serendipitous. I love when that happens. Congrats on a great cake!
