Foodie Friday - Tipsy Chocolate Raspberry Cake

It's Friday! I'm so happy to be participating in Foodie Friday this week, hosted by the ever gracious Gollum. This week's optional theme is "Cakes". Be sure to stop by and visit http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/ to see what everyone is sharing this week!

In 3 weeks, a very special person will be getting married. Kim was one of my part-time receptionists while she was attending college. She is only 2 years older than my Cait, and I grew very fond of her. She is a doll, and has grown into such a lovely young woman. She has the most glorious hair, and laughingly refers to herself as my "red-headed stepchild" Kim has since moved to the Dallas area to finish school, but we stay in contact as her family still lives in Georgetown. Several of her former co-workers wanted to host a small wedding shower for her, and Cait insisted on baking the cake. As you can see, it came out beautifully and was SO delicious! It was the hit of the shower, and Kim said her father ate the rest of it when they took it home! However, this did not come easy, believe me! I will save the cake baking opus for next week's Foodie Friday Trainwrecks! This ended up being a mish mash of several recipes and Cait's improvisation. We have named it Tipsy Chocolate Raspberry Cake. Hope you enjoy!


Cait's Tipsy Chocolate Raspberry Cake
You can use any good chocolate layer cake recipe that you prefer, this is the one that we used.

Dark Chocolate Layer Cake

2 C flour
2 C sugar
3/4 C Dark Cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 C milk
1/2 C oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 C boiling water

Combine dry ingredients, stir with whisk. Add remaining ingredients, beat well.
Lightly grease 2 8 " round cake pans, lightly dust with cocoa
Base at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 5 minutes, turn out on racks and cool completely.

While cake is baking, prepare the filling.

1 bag of frozen raspberries or 2 pints fresh
sugar
2 oz Grand Marneir liqueur
Heavy whipping cream

Place berries in bowl, pour liqueur over and lightly sprinkle with sugar. Marinate while cake is baking. Beat whipping cream, combine with berry mixture until a nice "spreadable" consistency, but don't completely "smash" the berries.
When cake is cool, place on cake stand. Cover top of first layer with the berry mixture. Place second layer. Frost as desired. We iced with the following recipe:

"Especially Dark" Chocolate Frosting

1/2 C butter or margarine (we used butter, thank you Paula Deen!)
2/3 C dark cocoa powder
3 C powdered sugar
1/3 C milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 to 2 oz Kahlua (we used 1 oz)

Melt butter; stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount of additional milk if needed. Stir in vanilla and Kahlua. Ice cake when completely cool.

Sift powdered sugar over top of cake and garnish with fresh raspberries.

This cake really is divine. Next time we are going to try it with strawberries, I think cherries would be nice too. Hope you enjoy, and stop back next week if you want to hear the lengths Cait went to to make sure that Kimmy had a wonderful cake for her shower!

Now stop by Gollum's place to see what other cakes are waiting for you!