I saw this one on the Food Network and made up my mind almost instantly that it would be this year's birthday cake. A cheesecake nestled in the middle of three layers of chocolate cake, you try and pass that one up. And so, because such a project should not be tackled by one alone, Taylor and I spent the afternoon assembling an absolutely gorgeous cake. I won't put you through all the details of mixing and baking layers, but the assembly is something to see, at least I think so. Especially since Taylor's amazing photographs (note his use of natural light!) capture it so well!
And I got excited about three layer cakes! I know it's supposed to be quality over quantity, but when you hit both it's incredibly hard to beat. The best part is between each of those delicious layers of cake is a cushion of fudge frosting. Just to make sure you don't get out of this one without a heart attack. Once you wrap that stack of joy in one of the fluffiest chocolate frostings you could possibly hope to taste, it looks a little something like this...
But don't you dare stop there! Chocolate curls are a must. Presentation is one of my favorite things about any type of baking of cooking endeavor, and thank goodness I had someone to help me make this cake perfect. Not only does Taylor take fabulous pictures, but he's also an expert chocolate curler. Or at least if he wasn't, he is now!
The first is Taylor making chocolate curls, which is so much easier than you could guess. We used a dark chocolate Hershey's bar, but really any chunk of chocolate will do just fine. The easiest way I've found to make them is take a peeler and just run it along your chocolate bar, thin sides for thin curls and thick sides for thick ones. Obviously the side of a Hershey's bar is fairly thin, but I think the chocolate curls Taylor made were perfect, don't they look pretty in that photo?
So after we finished distributing those on the top and sides we decided we were finished because 1, if we added anything more it would probably be lethal and 2, we ran out of recipe. In the end, it turned out like this...
We cut into it at the party and I think it was a hit, I know I thought it was delicious! It's a fairly easy recipe, it just takes a few hours. If you're interested, I found it by searching "Junior's Cheesecake" on FoodNetwork.com, it's actually a recipe from Junior's restaurant in New York City, famous for their cheesecakes. The recipe says to make everything well ahead of time and freeze/refrigerate the layers for periods of time before assembly, but we ignored that and were just fine. I would however recommend that you take care to serve the cake cold, warm cheesecake, even if it's only a fourth of the product, is not the best of all ideas...
If I had a photobucket account and/or wasn't so lazy and created one, I would have commented on the beauty of the photograph of the chocolate curls. I think it should be blown up and made into a 1000 piece puzzle. The joy in that is seeing a wonderful photograph in bigger form and better yet being able to watch someone trying to put it together. I believe that would create a night/month of hilarity that would be forever remembered....but then again, that is just my humble opinion and seeing as no one except for Molly...and possibly Taylor will ever read this, it doesn't really matter what I say. Well, yet another time, Molly you seemingly are a fantastic baker and you should continue to bake interesting and delicious things. If you ever need someone to taste test your products because you are afraid that you have a biased opinion of them, just give me a call and I will gladly devour said baked good.
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