A Perfect World: Cake and Ice Cream

(Now I just came back from a little time in the most indulgent and fat place in the country: TEXAS.  I figured the least I could do for them was to honor them with something that will surely extend your waste-line a couple of inches.  Here's to you, Texas!)

Oh yes, I believe in a world where one can have their cake and eat it, too.  In fact, cake is my absolute all time favorite food.  Like pizza, it can be futzed with (yes, futzed) until it meets your exact needs.  It can be made healthy or as horribly cardiac arrest inducing as you would like it to be.  While I'm a proponent of buttery sugary coma inducing goodness, the cake I'm offering up to you today is a little lighter and airier than most cakes.  But, hey, you may have seen my pants rip in a previous post, so you know it can't be too good for you, right?

This cake also takes  a little extra effort.  It's a LOG--a wonderful double-edged sword in meaning, it is a beautiful and simple arrangement of cake and frosting for those of you who can't or won't put the effort into decorating a cake.  If you're the one to do a little work as possible and take all the credit, you might like this little ditty.

CHOCOLATE SPONGE CAKE WITH PEANUT BUTTER BUTTER CREAM


A delicious airy sponge cake with a frosting that has the word 'butter' in it twice.  What's not to love? 


Here are the ingredients you'll need: 


For the cake: 


1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp sugar
6 eggs, seperated
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
5 oz bittersweet/semisweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar


For the butter cream: 


1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup chunky peanut butter
2-3 tablespoons milk/soy milk/rice milk
1 1/2 - 2 cups powdered sugar


Some other crap you'll need: 


12x17 shallow cake pan
Parchment paper
Oven, duh


Ok, so let's start with the cake.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  I'm surprised I remembered to include this step this early in the recipe.   Line your cake sheet with parchment paper and rub some butter on top of the parchment until it's nice and buttery.  Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top.

Separate the eggs and put the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another.  If you aren't familiar with this practice, it's pretty simple.  Just crack the eggs in the middle and while holding the two halves over a bowl, flip the yolk back and forth until all the whites come off and drip into the bowl.  Then just toss the yolk into another bowl.  Don't freak out if you can't get all the white off, sometimes those suckers stick like they think their little yolk friends have a chance at life.

Melt the chocolate in a steel bowl over boiling water.  When it's melted, set aside.

In the bowl with the yolks, toss in the 1/4 cup sugar and beat furiously with a mixer.  It's going to be about 5 minutes until it's nice and fluffy.  Add the vanilla extract and beat those eggs like they just changed the channel during overtime.  My aunt notified me after this post that I forgot to say what to do with the chocolate....OOPS.  Quickly beat the melted chocolate into this egg mixture enough to combine the egg and chocolate.  Then set aside.

For the egg whites, add cream of tartar and beat until peaks begin to form.  Add a little bit of sugar to these to really get them going.  So, in addition to the 1/4 cup, add 2 tbsps to these bad boys.  Stiff peaks should form.

Slowly, gently and lovingly fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture.  A sincere apology for yelling about the game, because TV just isn't that important.  (Note: I just recently read the story about the guy who beat an 8 year old until his guts blew up because the kid erased his video game or something that important...Onto the cake!)

It should look like this:

Light and fluffy goodness.

When your stuff is all mixed and together, you can put on the pan and spread evenly.  Toss that sucker in the oven and let it hang tough four about 15-20 minutes.  Make sure you begin to check it around the 15 minute mark.  When it's done, it'll spring like a sponge (ooooohh) when you touch it.  When it's done, take it out and let it cool.

Hopefully, it will look this sexy:

Very sexy indeed.

Now the frosting:

Put all the ingredients besides the powdered sugar and mix until it's all blended.  Then, slowly add the powdered sugar (I do about 1/4-1/2 cup each time) and mix until it is at a nice spreadable consistency.

I really really really like this recipe, because buttercream can be a very tricky thing.  This buttercream, however, doesn't need to be nice and airy, because it deliciously counters the lightness of the cake.  It is also just a dream on brownies and cupcakes.  NUM NUM.

Now the "tough" part.  You're going to evenly spread the frosting onto the cake.  You might have a little frosting left over, depending on how much sugar you put in and how much frosting you wanted on your cake.  After you spread it, just slowly roll it while you peel the parchment paper away.  It's that simple.  Just roll it and peel.

You can slice it easily with a bread knife.

Glamour shot:

You know you want it.

I said I was going to include ice cream, but I lied because, like you, I'm very very lazy.  So, that'll be up next.

See you in a week...if you're lucky.