It is his tradition to get a mint chocolate chip log roll cake from Baskin Robbins every year, and I kept pestering him, telling him I could make something better, and this year he decided to let me have a shot.
I'm not sure I met the challenge. There were a few issues with this recipe that made me wish I had done a trial run, but between surgery and other holiday baking I just didn't have a chance!
I made the Triple-Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Peppermint Filling from epicurious.com, after an extensive cookbook and internet search for something chocolate minty. The filling is a soft ganache made with milk chocolate, the cake batter has cocoa powder and mini chocolate chips, and the glaze has semisweet/bittersweet chocolate (I used a mixture of both). Now when I count that, I get four chocolates, but maybe that name was taken.
My biggest complaint is the cake itself. It could be my fault, but I overcooked it way too much. I think part of the reason is the mini chocolate chips, which increase the cooking temperature of the cake far past a normal cake would cook once it is taken out of the oven. So because the cake was practically crusty on the outside, the gloss was not as smooth as I would have liked (in fact, this first picture shows some of the ganache peeking through).
Flavor wise, it was pretty good, but I was too distracted by the dryness of the cake. The filling was possibly the best part, and I also substituted one of the teaspoons of vanilla for peppermint extract in the cake, so it was all quite pepperminty.
I'm having a hard time deciding if this was even what I would consider "good" or not. Peppermint is something I enjoy but doesn't really rank in my top dessert flavors (unless we're talking mochas, in which case peppermint is my #1) so I could take or leave this cake.
I served this with Ben & Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie ice cream, which upped the mint even more. What I am wishing now is that I had tried to replicate the original Baskin Robbins cake, and just make an improved version. I think that was my intent before I started recipe hunting, and then it turned into a completely different animal.
Categories: Cake, Chocolate, Mint
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