Grandma's Cake

Hi Haley,

I miss having you in Victoria. Thanks for passing on the photo shoot of Grandma's B-day. I particularly like the one of Atley delivering cake. He's one of the better servers I've seen in action. When we open our restaurant we'll have to hire him. Right now he gets pretty excited over pennies and nickles to add to the leather man's wallet he totes around. I'm thinking his labour price could be right.

I won't give you the entire chocolate cake recipe, as there are a million and one good chocolate cake recipes out there. If you don't have one, use the six minute cake. It's actually one of my top chocolate cake recipes.

What I did in creating this towering cake, was use a bunt pan instead of 2 nine inch pans. I increased the baking time to about one hour. When the cake cooled, I sliced them horizontally into three pieces and spread them with blueberry jam (any flavour will do). Then I iced the outside of the cake in this most excellent frosting.

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting
5 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped (best to use good quality)
1/2 a pound cold butter, diced (use room temp butter if you don't have a stand mixer)
1 and 3/4 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp coffee liqueur (optional)

Melt the butter in a double boiler and in the meantime, beat the butter in a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment, until light and fluffy. Slowly add the chocolate and mix until combined. Stop the mixer, add the icing sugar, and mix on low until smooth. (If you mix on high you will be enveloped in a white cloud). Add the salt, vanilla, sour cream, and coffee liqueur and mix until very smooth.

Ice your cake!