Recipe: Chocolate Spoonful Cake with Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting and Chocolate Glaze

Be sure to read the comments, especially "A Cook From Georgia 1/24/04"** regarding the making of the cake....apparently this recipe was difficult for some.

CHOCOLATE SPOONFUL CAKE

FOR CAKE LAYERS:
3 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 3/4 cups sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

FOR FILLING/FROSTING:*
3 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups sour cream
1 cup heavy (whipping) cream
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

FOR GLAZE:
3 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate shavings, shaved with a vegetable peeler from a bar of chocolate, for coating side of cake

MAKE CAKE LAYERS:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Butter and flour two 9- by 2-inch round cake pans, knocking out excess flour.

In a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water melt chocolate, stirring until smooth, and cool.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in sour cream and vanilla until combined. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well with after each addition.

In a bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and gradually add to sour cream mixture, beating until just combined. Beat in chocolate until batter is just combined and divide between pans.

Bake layers in middle of oven until a tester comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool layers in pans on rack 10 minutes and invert onto racks to cook completely.

MAKE FILLING/FROSTING:
In a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, melt chocolate, stirring until smooth, and cool to room temperature. In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat together sour cream, heavy cream, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla until thickened. Beat in chocolate until combined.

MAKE GLAZE:
In a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, melt chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth, and cool.

ASSEMBLE CAKE:
With a long serrated knife halve cake layers horizontally. Stack layers on a cake plate, spreading 1 cup filling/frosting between each layer. Spread side of cake with remaining filling/frosting.

Pour glaze on top of cake, spreading to just cover top, and coat side with chocolate chips and shavings, pressing them in gently.

Makes 1 (9-inch) cake

*RECIPE CORRECTIONS/NOTES:
"This recipe was wonderful but has a big error. The frosting it calls for 2 cups sour cream and 1 cup confectioner's sugar. Reverse the amounts!!! On my second try for the frosting it was wonderful. Tip: let the creams get to room temperature and the chocolate cool off before combining, otherwise the chocolate curdles." by A Cook from Edison, NJ on 01/23/99

"My husband made this for me for my birthday and it looked lovely and tasted lovely, with his genius improvisation. However, please read these tips before you make this recipe or it will all end up in tears: I believe that whoever submitted this must have had really fat fingers, because there must be a typo for the filling, which will indeed come out a runny, soupy mess if you follow it, even if you cut back on the liquid. And it will ruin your lovely cake if you try in vain to use it. However, this 'filling' (better called sauce) tastes really good and our solution was to store it in a bowl and literally SPOON it over our individual cake slices, rather than try to fill the whole cake with it. Another thing I wanted to mention that newer bakers might panic over - the cake will come out very dense. Dont worry. It needs to be dense so you can cut it in half. If you dont like really dense cake then buy four pans instead of two and fill them half way with batter from a moist cake recipe. If all else fails, Betty Crocker is only ever a few steps away." by A Cook from washington on 10/22/02

"I was worried that this would be a disaster after reading the other comments, but if you have space in your fridge and a few hours it comes out fine. I used one cup of cream cheese instead of sour cream because it holds up better, the sour cream was way too runny, even when I used 2 cups of powdered sugar and one of sour cream. I refridgerated the icing for one hour before frosting the cake and then I refridgerated the cake for 3 hours before serving. Everyone thought it was great! Also, always make sure the melted chocolate and the cream is at room temp. when you mix them or your icing will come out with freckles and taste like sour cream instead of chocolate!" by A Cook from CA on 11/29/02

"I wish I had read the reviews first. I am an experienced baker, but this cake's filling came out way too soupy. The cake is in the frig and I'm hoping it firms up before tonight's party. It does not look nice -- all the sour cream filling is oozing out the sides. Hubby is out getting more chocolate to shave so I can stick it on the sides of the cake in hopes of improving the appearance. I'm also going to buy another dessert. I would try it again using much less sour cream or the cream cheese as others have suggested. The filling is just too soft to hold the cake together. --- Update: after a few hours in the fridge, the cake firmed up. The glaze hardened and we had to use an electric knife to slice it, but it drew rave reviews for taste. I would make it again but follow tips: beat whipped cream first, fold in less sour cream; let it chill before using the filling and chill the entire cake for a few hours before serving. It didn't look very good, but it tasted very good." by A Cook from Rochester, NY on 01/14/03

"This recipe is a bit problematic but here are my suggestions to make it work: definitely go with the cream cheese instead of the sour cream for the filling, do NOT attempt to cut your cake into 4 layers but just go with the more traditional and less frustrating 2, skip the glaze because guess what? when melted chocolate gets hard it gets very very hard and difficult to cut through - use the extra filling for the top, if you follow these steps you will save yourself hours of frustration and end up with a very tasty cake. Good luck." - by A Cook from San Francisco on 10/11/04

**"According to many of my friends this is the most excellent chocolate cake! The problem lies with the instructions the ingredients ARE CORRECT. The cake and the glaze are fine the difficulty comes with the filling - do not follow the filling instructions. 1ST whip the heavy cream, 2ND whip remaining ingredients (sour cream, melted cooled choc., vanilla, powdered sugar), 3RD fold the whipped cream into the choc mixture and wala you have the perfect filling. Very simple. I also found for the filling that the sour cream and melted choc need to be room temp. It doesn't take long for the choc to cool and it will take a while for it to harden again. As you read other frustrations, I too had frustrations. First it was the room temp of choc, sour cream etc. Secondly, the first two times I made the cake I also switched the amounts of sour cream and pwdr sugar, but knew that Gourmet did not make errors and checked the original magazine recipe and it too printed 2 c. sour cream and 1 c. powder sugar thus I braved the 3rd try. The first cake was a hit even though the filling had choc small bits. The second was also a hit with the bit too sweet filling (twice the pwdr sugar) and not enough to cover the outside of the cake - again too appealing of presentation. But this third time was a charm. One last recommendation - freeze the cake layers, even if it is just overnight. Let them thaw a room temp and then cut them in half. Freezing the cake layers should be done with any cake as it adds additional moistness. Good luck - there is not a better chocolate cake. My friends are now asking me to bake their birthday cakes. In this day in age - that is amazing as most people naturally rely on store made cakes! And the best part for experienced bakers is that this is a challenge." - by A Cook from Atlanta, GA on 01/24/04

Source: Epicurious (Gourmet magazine, April 1996)