Blackout Cake

I made the Brooklyn Blackout Cake from Gale Gand's butter sugar flour eggs book (page 110). This is a very pretty book with lovely photos, and she has a show on the Food Network. She tried to create a cake found at a now-defunct Ebinger's chain of bakeries in Brooklyn. I thought it looked like King's Hawaiian's Dobash cake so I wanted to make it!

I used a lot (2 1/4 cups) of my Dutch-processed cocoa for the cake and custard. You cook two 9-inch cakes and then half both of them to make 4 layers. You use three layers in the cake and food process the 4th layer to make the crumbs. I overcooked my cakes as the edges were a little too brown. My friend, Helen is a baker and she told me to get some cake even-bake strips to wrap around the edges of the pan for, well, even-baking! I'll go get those this weekend. I ended up shaving off the edges and then my cake got a bit lopsided. Next time, I need to do a "dry run" with all three layers before frosting it! Learning something new everyday...

The custard could be improved. The taste was chocolately, but the texture was off. The instructions don't say to sieve it, but I think that would have helped...although it was so thick I don't know if it would have gone through the sieve. Anyway, I'll try to work on that for the next time.

P.S. Guess where I'm going on 7/11? The Kwik-E-Mart! I'm going to the West LA 7-11 store that has been changed to the Simpson's Kwik-E-Mart. Photos to come!