Grand-mère's Smarties Cake
Recently a friend lost her grandma and was very sad about it. In a casual conversation I said we should make a dinner featuring some of her grandma's dishes and my friend mentioned that they had a tradition of making a cake and decorating it with Smarties. I thought that was a great idea!
A few months later we were organizing a dinner among friends and I decided to make her a Chocolate Cake decorated with Smarties in memory of her grandmother. European Smarties are different from American Smarties which are a sour candy. The European ones are like pastel-colored M & Ms. I was surprised to be able to find them in a local specialty shop! They were expensive, and since it's November all they had was a Christmas variety in red and green. Later on I saw some candy at Trader Joe's that looked exactly like the Euro Smarties in all the colors, unfortunately too late for this cake but I plan to try them for future reference!
I wanted to make a 2-layer cake, planning for it to be more of a low cake. I decided to make a chocolate cake, since I know that pleases everyone. I looked for a 2-layer recipe and found this one on King Arthur's website.
I made the recipe in two 8" pans. The only change I made to the recipe was to use regular cocoa powder instead of Dutch process. I called King Arthur to ask if this meant I had to change the amount of baking soda or baking powder, but they said it wouldn't make a difference. I used up a bit of Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate powder I had (10g), and completed the rest of the chocolate with regular Hershey's.
I wanted to use coffee to enhance the taste, but since we would be eating the cake late in the evening, I was afraid of putting in caffeine. As a compromise I used 50% coffee and 50% water. The coffee we make in the morning is mostly decaf, so I felt this would be OK.
I weighed the batter in the cake pans but they still baked differently. Interesting, this oven never ceases to surprise! One of the cakes took 38 minutes and the other took 40. The cakes were thicker than I expected. Two of these, stacked, yield a finished cake that's almost as tall as one made with three regular layers. This is good to know for future reference when I'm looking to make a tall cake.
I had some chocolate buttercream in the freezer left over from a birthday cake a few weeks ago. I probably had about a cup. I took it out of the freezer the night before, but I didn't want to put it on the counter during the day so there wouldn't be condensation, ie water getting into the chocolate. Instead, I left it in the refrigerator until just using it. I microwaved small amounts until they were liquid, then whipped them together with the solid buttercream. It came together perfectly! I made another batch, and with the leftover frosting, plus not having to fill a third layer, had no need to make two batches of buttercream. In fact, I had fresh buttercream left over that I ended up freezing! LOL.
The decoration was simple, easy, and lots of fun to make. I frosted the cake, then made her grandma's initial on the caketop using green Smarties. I didn't use a stencil, just placed them down in rows until the J looked good then pressed down on them to get them to adhere. Around the Smarties I sprinkled pastel-colored sprinkles and I piped a chocolate border using a 1M tip. I put red Smarties on top of the border. Then, I placed two rows of Smarties on the bottom of the cake sides. I used only green Smarties for these two rows, not wanting it to look like a holiday cake. I ran out of green ones, so I did end up using 3 reds. I hesitated about doing this, but in fact I think it added a cute and fun touch. I was very pleased with the cake overall, it looked fun and appealing.
When I brought the cake out for dessert, my friends started hooting with laughter. I'd gotten grandma's name wrong! Her initial was G, not J! I laughed along and wasn't bothered. As I told them, now we'll never forget her name, and a G would have been much harder to make with Smarties. There was a time when I would have been mortified to make such a mistake, but now at this point in life, I'm (finally) able to just laugh about it. It's the intention that counts, and I'm sure they know that. Still... I must pay closer attention!
For dinner we served guacamole and corn chips, chicken with mustard tarragon cream sauce, rice pilaf, green salad, cheese board with crackers and the cake. My friends brought 4 kinds of cheeses: a Conte, a Morbier, a Brie, and a soft cheese with a blue vein. They also brought an amber wine, which was fun to try, and a Pinot Noir. An amber wine is a new trend, a white wine that incorporates the red skins of the grapes. This particular bottle, Uvio, was from Portugal. I liked it very much.
I was afraid to eat too much at that late hour, so I only took a thin sliver of the cake. It was delicious! My friend commented that she really liked how moist it was. I agree - I think with 4 eggs in the recipe, and carefully watching the baking time, you won't get a dry cake.
We enjoyed a great evening with friends and when our guests left everybody was game to bring home another slice of cake. This makes me happy!
Later on, I thought about grandmothers. I feel "cheated" in that respect. My paternal grandmother was, by all accounts, a very difficult woman who was not kind or attentive to my father. By the time I came along, she was bedridden and had some kind of dementia. I was scared of her and we had zero relationship, granted she wasn't able to. She passed away when I was 13. I knew my maternal grandmother better since she passed away when I was already 17. She did spend more time with us when we were young, and we visited her often. She was nice but meek, and her direct relationship was with my mother instead of with us. I wish she had talked with me, told me stories and taught me things. But we just didn't connect, and I don't think she did with any of her grandchildren. Now much later in life, as I observe women who are only slightly older with their grandchildren, I marvel at what that relationship can be, and feel I truly missed out. But, there's nothing I can do about it.
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