Mint Chocolate Layer Cake

On Friday I had a blast at a party at my friends Victor and Patrick's house! It being Patrick's birthday, the occasion called for a cake, so I put one together and it came out quite well... but I guess I am biased towards chocolate-mint seeing as how it's the best flavor combo EVER. Good choice, Patrick! Chocolate cake, mint Swiss-meringue buttercream, a Moroccan mint tea soak... awwww yeaaaah.





Of course I gave the cake my new signature Azara look: almost flat on the sides but leaving room for irregularities (not refrigerating and re-smoothing with a heated palette knife), and a swirl on the top. Straight-forward, no-fuss, but elegant.

This time I tried using a Swiss meringue for the buttercream, a departure from my usual Italian meringue. Instead of making a hot sugar syrup and beating it into whipped egg whites, the Swiss version calls for melting the sugar into the egg whites in a bain-marie (double boiler) and then beating that mixture into a meringue. I liked it; it was very soft, but didn't cause any structural problems as I layered it. My only complaint is that every once in a while I detected a grain or two of sugar that hadn't completely melted. Next time I'll keep it on the bain-marie for longer!

Moroccan Mint Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons very strong, warm Moroccan mint tea (or whatever other tea you'd like to use)
1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons powdered egg whites (with the tea, equivalent to 7 egg whites: you can use regular egg whites and just flavor the buttercream with mint extract)
2 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 1/3 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 lbs butter (eight sticks) at room temp
Mint extract

Reconstitute the powdered egg whites with the tea. Place the sugar, water, and reconstituted whites in the top of a bain-marie filled with simmering water, and stir constantly to dissolve the sugar. Once all the grains have disappeared, beat the mixture on high speed until the bottom of the bowl is cool to the touch.
Gradually beat the butter into the meringue. It may look like it's breaking, but keep beating until it is light and billowy! Taste and add mint extract as needed.

The chocolate cake recipe I used is here.

Here are some terrible night-pictures of the inside! 14 layers...

Bake Hard,
Azara