CAKE 3: chocolate raspberry curl cake

this one WORKED!

hahaha, you can see my three fingerprints. oops!

this is Jessica's chocolate raspberry curl cake! it took a lot of time to make it, and three sink-fulls of dishes, but was totally worth the end product. it's very decadent, asking for lots of butter, sugar and sour cream. it also calls for frozen raspberry cocktail concentrate to be added to the batter to complement the bitter chocolate (which is does extremely well). for those who are chocolate lovers, this cake is for you!

here is what you need:

1-1/2 cups of softened butter

2-1/2 cups of granulated sugar

3 eggs

1/4 cup of thawed raspberry cocktail concentrate (i used about half a cup because i thought it needed more)

3 cups of all-purpose flour

3/4 of a cup of cocoa powder

1-1/2 tsp of baking powder 

1-1/2 tsp of baking soda

pinch of salt

2 cups of sour cream

for the icing, i improvised with butter, cream cheese, milk, cocoa powder and confectioners sugar. 

for the chocolate curls, i melted 6 ounces of bakers chocolate and spread it on the back of a rectangular cookie sheet (don't use non-stick for this) and cooled it in the fridge for 15 minutes and let it rest on the counter for another 5 and used the side of a spoon to make the curls. to make things less messy, i used a toothpick to transfer the curls to the cake so that they wouldn't melt. 

here is what you do: beat the butter and the sugar until it's light and fluffy. beat in the eggs, one at a time,  beating well after each. mix in the raspberry concentrate.

in another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa (sifting the cocoa is extremely important because it tends to make little clumps), baking powder, baking soda, and salt. with a wooden spoon, stir it into the butter mixture alternately with the sour cream, making three additions of dry ingredients and two of sour cream. pour it into three prepared pans and smooth the tops.

pop it into a 350℉ oven until a cake tester (again, a toothpick!) comes out clean, about 30 or 35 minutes. take them out to cool for about ten minutes and then turn them out onto some racks to completely cool.

once the cakes are cool, you can put the icing on them and start layering them. for an extra kick, i spread some homemade raspberry jam (plucked from the garden!) on the cakes to sandwich with the chocolate icing! if you need to shave off a bit of the cake to make it even (like i did) use a serrated knife, like one you might use for slicing bread, as this makes it a lot easier. garnish with the chocolate curls and fresh raspberries!

and there you have it! Jessica sent me a gorgeous picture of herself eating the cake!