24/12/13 - Baking with Baileys: Death by Buttercream

My Baileys recipe series is back!  And this time, it's a bit decadent and very tasty.  What's better than a big chocolatey cake at Christmas?  A big chocolatey cake with alcoholic icing.  Oh yes, my friends.  Brace yourselves.  It's delicious, so simple and basically two amazing things about Christmas rolled into one.  Perfection.

Use any chocolate cake recipe you like.  I used a Devil's Food Cake recipe that I found in a random book in our kitchen, and it turned out to be more than a little demonic.  The mixture was lovely and thick, but somehow the finished product was a little less impressive than I'd hoped.  So pick your favourite fail-safe.



Although it tasted fine, this crumbling portion in the photo above was a bit of a disappointment and the cakes could have done with a little more height.  Ah well, I never pretended to be a great baker.  And I'm fairly certain that the piece-de-resistance of this recipe makes up for a few structural flaws in the cake.

The icing is where the magic happens; a simple buttercream base of icing sugar and room temperature butter combined with cocoa powder, vanilla essence and a few spoons of Baileys.  The result is rich and luscious, mildly alcoholic and totally delicious.  I don't know what kind of measurements I did for this as I always improvise icing mixtures, but I'm fairly certain I use one teaspoon of vanilla and maybe three dessert-spoon servings of cocoa powder and a decent glug of Baileys.  Other than that, just add whatever you need to get it to your desired taste and texture.







Adding liquid means that you have to balance it out with rather a lot of icing sugar and it's a rather inexact science, so of course there will be some left over which - top baking tip - you should just eat with a spoon.  Look how hard you've worked, you deserve it.

The finished product is certainly a festive treat and will earn you brownie points from anyone you share it with.  I took this bad boy into work and was told that should I ever leave for alternative employment, I would still be expected to be the team's resident cake supplier.  So that's a fairly ringing endorsement!




What's your favourite total overindulgence?  This might be mine!  Let me know in the comments.

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