I finally came across a recipe on Annie's Eats, and some pictures that were mouth watering delicious. Actually, as soon as I saw rum soak, I was sold. Annie's seriously amazing cake can be found here.
Like I said, I don't make cakes ... I use box cake. I know, I'm really lame but I don't care. The scratch cake is just way too much measuring for me. Frosting is more my style because it's more in line with the "eyeball," "good enough," "yum, more is more" approach to cooking.
So, after scanning the 900 cake ingredients, and reading the blog comments about two types of chocolate, etc. I decided to move toward my pantry and pull out my $1.00 box of Duncan Hines German Chocolate cake mix. Please, don't tell this poor Annie woman because she seems like the type that won't take that kind of thing very lightly.
Step 1 - Rum Syrup
Actually, the rum syrup was your basic simple syrup with rum added - or "more is more" rum added. From the instructions, nothing unusual or noteworthy to report on making that part other than a heavy hand with the rum bottle was delish.
Make that crap and set it aside.
Step 2 - Coconut Filling
Let me be the first to tell you that if you accidentally find that you hadn't followed the directions at all in this section by omitting sugar, and dumping everything into a sauce pan - don't give up. It still turns out; luckily a taste test confirmed I forgot the sugar, and added that in after the sauce was thickened - only drawback was a slight "sugar crunch" when taste testing. Eh, I'll survive.
Once you make the filling, set aside.
Step 3 - Crack. I mean Frosting. I mean Ganache
Let me also tell you that if you dump all of the ingredients for the ganache into the pan (chocolate, cream, corn syrup) instead of heating the cream and pouring it over the chocolate in a bowl, it also still turns out. The only drawback (I think) was that it took longer to set - but that's what my freezer was for. There are some good tips on the frosting in the comments section that I recommend reading through. One question pending is how long this cake frosting will keep - which isn't long because it will harden - so this is a day-of cake for sure.
Try not to eat the whole bowl while it sets.
Step 4 - Get that cupcake a drink!
Remember that amazing rum syrup? Well, once the cupcakes have cooled, dip the tops of those bad-boys into the rum syrup down to the paper lining. I dipped mine 3 times, and still could have used a little more love.
Step 5 - Hole-y Cupcake!
So, after trying to spread the filling around on the cupcake without it sliding down the paper, my sister in law (who made cannoli cupcakes) reminded me that we could hallow out the cupcake a little and shove the coconut filling inside, then frost the tops. So we did. I have a cupcake filler tool, but since I was at my mom's house for this baking session, I just used a small knife and popped out a little bit of the cupcake. I figured that was more sanitary than taking bites out of the tops of each one. One thing I may try next time is dipping the cupcake after the hole is in the top so the rum can get to the inside of the cupcake. Since it was an experiment, I didn't think of that the first time around, and they were still good.
After the holes are made, put a spoonful of coconut filling inside each one. Then, finish off with the ganache frosting.
They were pretty good. I didn't have any room to eat one by the time the dessert came around, so I froze mine (honestly, have you ever had a frozen hoho? No? Try it and you won't have them any other way).
Here's a picture of my frozen breakfast the next day.
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| Don't Mind the Frost! |
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| Inside - frozen but still yummy! |
