Sour Cream Fudge Layer Cake

One of my friend's husband is in Iraq right now. However, he has been in town for the past week for his vacation. This being said, his birthday is later this month and his wife decided to have a gathering and asked me to bring the cake. I love baking cakes as you all know by now...so this wasn't an unreasonable request. I picked a Sour Cream Fudge Layer Cake recipe out of Baking Illustrated because I wanted to make a different kind of chocolate cake. Making this cake was an adventure lest I say. The picture below might say to you what kind of adventure I had. :)


Sour Cream Fudge Cake
1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup non-alkalized cocoa
2 teaspoons instant espresso or coffee powder
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Chocolate Butter Icing
9 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/3 cup light corn syrup

1. For the cake: Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans and cover the plan bottoms with rounds of parchment paper or waxed paper. Grease the parchment rounds and dust the pan with flour, tapping out the excess.
2. Mix the cocoa and instant expresso powder in a small bowl; add the boiling water and mix until smooth. Cool to room temperature, then stir in the sour cream and vanilla.
3. Beat the butter in the bowl of a standing mixer at medium speed until smooth and shiny, about 30 seconds. Gradually sprinkle in the sugar; beat until the mixture is fluffy and almost white, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating 1 full minute after each addition.
4. Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. With the mixer at the lowest speed, add about a third of the dry ingredients to the batter, followed immediately by about a third of the cocoa mixture; mix until the ingredients are almost incorporated into the batter. Repeat the process twice more. When the batter appears blended, stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Return the mixer to low speed; beat until the batter looks satiny, about 15 seconds longer.
5. Divide the batter evenly between the pans. With a rubber spatula, spread the batter to the pan sides and smooth the tops. Bake the cakes until they feel firm in the center when lightly pressed and a toothpick or thin skewer comes out clean or with just a crumb or two adhering, 23 to 30 minutes. Transfer pans to wire racks; cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the perimeter of each pan, invert the cakes onto the racks, and peel off the paper liners. Reinvert the cakes onto additional racks; cool completely before frosting.
6. For the icing: Melt the chocolate and butter in a medium bowl set over a pan of almost simmering water. Stir in the corn syrup. Set the bowl of chocolate mixture over a larger bowl of ice water, stirring occasionally, until the icing is just thick enough to spread.

So I am not going to lie, I had trouble making this cake. I tried twice. Now the cake seemed to be going great each time. I had no trouble mixing it and placing it in my awesome William Sonoma Cake pans. Everything seemed to be going great. Then as I baked it, it sank some. Then the real problem came when it was time to flip it. What a disaster! However, the cake did taste good. Next time, I think I will make this cake a sheet cake. I give this cake 3.5 out 5 stars....merely because of my inability to flip it.