The last month or so of my weekends have been spent doing some serious recipe testing.  Chocolate-malt-cake recipe testing to be more specific.  You see, I am entering a bake-off this weekend– only my second ever, but my first was a success so I want to be sure to give it my all.

The first cake I made was a little on the dry side and didn’t include any malt powder in the batter which I think it needed to impart the flavor I was going for, but there were elements I loved like the white chocolate-malt crunch and the malt chocolate fudge sauce between layers.  Also it felt strange to eat an unfrosted cake.  Cake should have frosting unless it’s perhaps a bundt cake or angel food cake or something along those lines.  But classic cake for sure should be frosted to the max.

The second cake I made was moist and delicious and included malt powder in the batter only the cake itself wasn’t chocolate and that just felt wrong since the theme of the bake-off is “death by chocolate.”  I did frost it this time but used some marshmallow mascarpone frosting I had in my freezer from a previous baking expedition and added cocoa powder without taking any sort of measurements meaning I couldn’t recreate it exactly the same again if I tried…

Last weekend I added cocoa powder to the cake batter so now I feel confident about the cake and the in-between-layer-goodness but felt the simple chocolate buttercream frosting I whipped up was a let down…

…I’ve decided that the final cake will have a cocoa mascarpone frosting of my own device.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  Wish me luck!