Practice Cherry Blossom Cake

Cherry Blossom Practice Cake

This weekend I made a practice cake.  I am planning a cherry blossom birthday cake for 80 people for my mom’s birthday party and thought I’d try out a new recipe from the “Organic and Chic” cookbook by Sara  Magid.  I made the “Diablo Cake,” her version of a devil’s food cake and vanilla whipped buttercream.    The Diablo Cake is intensely chocolate.  I loved it!  It reminded me of a flourless chocolate cake…dense and not too sweet, with the taste of a dark chocolate bar.  I think the one cup of coffee in the batter really brings out the chocolate!

My vanilla whipped buttercream was a light brown color, partly because of the organic sugar and lots because of the dark Trader Joe’s pure vanilla flavor.  For the  real cake, I think that I will make a swiss meringue buttercream because it’s a smoother texture and I want a whiter background for the cherry blossoms.  The cherry blossoms for this practice cake were ones I made quickly out of royal icing.  My icing was a little too soft, so the petals aren’t very defined, but I think the overall effect came out nicely.  For the real cake, I am working on gum paste cherry blossoms with my friend, Donna.

I took the cake to my meeting on Monday night, and they all were duly impressed.  Here’s a picture of a slice of cake.  You can see how rich and dense the cake is!  I put a raspberry filling in between the layers because that’s what I happened to have around.  It made a nice compliment to the dark chocolate.  For the real cake, I’m going to use cherry filling to go with the cherry blossom theme.

Slice of cake