Charm your beloved on Valentine’s Day with a slice of Strawberry-Chocolate Chip Love Spell Cake! White cake is studded with mini chocolate chips and layered with strawberry filling to celebrate the season’s most admired flavors.
Decors and powder coatingsee blog post for decor instructions
1/2cuppowdered sugar
13.25 inch modeling chocolate heart décor
141.75 inch modeling chocolate strawberry decors
12-inchskewer arrow
Instructions
Make the cake layers
Preheat the oven to 325°F.
Coat two 8-inch baking pans and two 6-inch baking pans with flour-based baking spray (recommend Baker’s Joy).
Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, oil and granulated sugar; mix until light and fluffy. Add egg whites one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Beat in the flour and buttermilk alternately with the mixer on low speed; begin and end with the flour. Scrape down the bowl as needed. Mixture will be thick. Gently fold in the mini chocolate chips.
Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake the 6-inch cakes for 20-25 minutes, or until the center is firm and well-set. Bake the 8-inch cakes for 35-40 minutes, or until firm and well-set. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto wire cooling racks to cool completely. Level the tops of the cooled cakes with a large serrated knife or a cake leveler. Cut each of the 6-inch cakes in half (torte) horizontally.
Make the vanilla syrup
In a saucepan combine the water and sugar. Cook over medium heat until the mixture is steaming but not boiling and the sugar is melted. Remove from the heat and let cool. Add the vanilla. Liberally brush the syrup over the cake layers on all sides. Re-apply until you have used all of the syrup. Add more syrup to the larger cakes so they’ll be soaked through, and take care to not oversaturate the smaller cakes so they don’t fall apart when you assemble them.
Make the frosting
In a medium saucepan, whisk together flour and 1/2 cup of milk until smooth. Set over medium-high heat and let cook for 3 minutes, or until slightly hot. Whisk in remaining milk and salt. Whisk constantly until the mixture has thickened to the consistency of unset pudding (this can take up to 10 minutes). Remove from heat and pour the mixture into a shallow dish. Place in the refrigerator until cool. When cool, mixture will be thick like custard.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whip, beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add vanilla and mix well. Beat in cooled flour mixture one tablespoon at a time on medium-high speed. When all the flour mixture is added beat on high speed until light and fluffy, about 6 minutes. Rub a little frosting between your fingers, if sugar granules remain, beat for 4 more minutes, or until granules cannot be detected with fingers. Transfer the frosting to a large piping bag with a 1/2 hold snipped in the end.
Assemble the cake
Place a syrup-soaked 8-inch cake layer on a cake board or cake stand. Pipe a line of frosting around the top edge of the cake and pipe a little in the center, also. This will serve as a dam to hold in the filling, and the frosting in the center will help stabilize the finished cake. Spoon the filling in between the frosting and cover with some of the sliced fresh strawberries. Stack the second 8-inch cake layer on top. Cover the top of the 8-inch cake with a thin layer of frosting.
Add a torted 6-inch syrup-soaked layer on the top center of the 8-inch layer. Pipe a line of frosting around the top edge of the cake. Cover with strawberry glaze and top with some of the fresh strawberry slices. Repeat this process with the remaining 6-inch cake layers. Refrigerate the cake until the frosting is firm, about 20 minutes. Slightly trim away the top edges of the cake using a serrated knife, to give the cake a slight dome-shape (the finished trimmed cake doesn’t have to be a perfect dome, as most of the layers were kept with square edges; this can be a roughed-out shape).
Cover the outside of the cake using the remaining frosting and smooth into a dome shape. Add extra frosting to the top center of the cake to achieve a rounded top. Smooth using an offset spatula. Refrigerate until the frosting is firm to touch, about 25 minutes.
When the cake is well-chilled, pat the powdered sugar onto the sides of the cake using your hand; begin from the bottom and travel upward in sections. Brush away excess sugar from the bottom edge of the cake using a pastry brush.
To attach the strawberry decors around the bottom edge of the cake, dampen a pastry brush with water and brush it around the bottom edge of the cake. Press strawberry decors to the moistened cake edge; they should hold in place. If they don’t stick naturally, brush a little more water onto the edge of the cake and try again.
Insert by the pointed toothpick end of the large heart décor in the top of the cake, slightly off center. Cut the arrow skewer in half, and insert each end to the left and right of the cake’s sides, as if it has been pierced by Cupid’s arrow.
Refrigerate cake until an hour before serving. Serve cake slightly chilled. Store the cake covered in the refrigerator.