Originally this was supposed to be a birthday cake order for a client, but they cancelled after I already baked the cake, stacked it up, and was about to decorate it. My client wanted a cake large enough to feed a family of 10-12(which is honestly way beyond the usual portions I serve, since I prefer doing quality over quantity and my cakes usually feed 6 to 8), and I wanted to get a head start on the order because of how large of a cake it needed to be, being an 8-inch cake, and me needing to play Jenga/Tetris with my freezer to then fit a cake of that size in there. The original cake was supposed to be a chocolate one with a pink berry buttercream. I wanted to do a chocolate mousse using pate bomb, which is made with whipped egg yolks and simple syrup, for the filling, and with the leftover egg whites, I needed to use those for the pink buttercream, which would be a Swiss meringue buttercream. I wanted it to be fit for a princess, since it was going to be for my client’s daughter’s 3rd birthday party.

Admittedly, I was having migraines that week BECAUSE the client only gave an 8-day notice, 3 of those days I would be out of town leading up to the day of their birthday party, and I wanted to be nice and accommodating because the client expressed interest in ordering from me in the past(even though they flaked on a previous order attempt, so I should have seen this coming, Mr. Now Blacklisted from Ordering a Cake From Me), and I will admit that was totally on me for accepting an order with an 8-day notice when I usually prefer a month-minimum notice to give me time to properly conceptualize the cake, source the ingredients, work out the logistics in terms of things like transporting and delivering the cake, etc. So when my client cancelled, I was livid. They were claiming that the cake had to be made the day before because they would prefer it to be fresh(which is idiotic because if you order any cake from any bakery, it probably has sat in the freezer for at least a couple of days), and since the cake was both being soaked AND would be covered in buttercream, there was a 0% chance that it would be dry or stale. But instead of accepting the order 3 days prior to the event, which would be a combination of both frozen and kept not-dry because of the cake soak and the buttercream, they decided that wasn’t good enough for them. Either way, I was extremely pissed because now I had a cake that was big enough to feed a Persian family of 10-12 in my freezer, and I contemplated driving down to Riverside where the client lived and throwing it through their window.

BUT that would be a massive waste of cake and time. Fortunately, around that same week, my friend Ann wanted to come over to bake a chocolate cake for a boy she was nannying, since she did not have access to a kitchen of her own to bake said cake out of. Unfortunately, Ann had to cancel baking with me because of how busy she was, and that was around the same time my client cancelled on me. Then I realized, I could solve two issues at once. I could give Ann the cake that my client bailed on, and then she would have a chocolate cake to present to the boy she was nannying for. Luckily, I had not put on the pink buttercream yet, nor did I even get around to making it, so I opted to keep the cake completely naked on the edges and finish the top of the cake with some chocolate ganache buttercream and rainbow sprinkles, just to keep it simple, chocolate-heavy(which is what the boy preferred anyways), and birthday-appropriate with the rainbow sprinkles on top. So, in short, this was still a birthday cake, but for a completely different person than who it was intended for, and to the client who bailed on me twice, thank you for providing my friend Ann with a birthday cake for her boss’s son, I guess? It all worked out, and I still joke with Ann that the universe wanted her to give that boy a chocolate cake!

For the chocolate cake:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 cup canola oil
2 tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 cups milk
1 tbsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, canola oil, baking soda, salt, and sugar together into an oily, clumpy dough. In another bowl, combine the other ingredients together to consolidate your wet ingredients. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into your clumpy dough to gradually loosen it into a smooth batter. Pour the batter into a lined quarter sheet tray and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Allow the cake to cool down before cutting out 2 8-inch rounds and pressing the remaining scraps into an 8-inch ring mold to form a third round.

For the Ovaltine soak:
1 cup water
2 tbsp Ovaltine powder
a pinch of salt

Mix the ingredients together to form your Ovaltine soak.

For the chocolate pate bomb mousse:
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp gelatin powder + 1 tbsp water
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped to stiff peaks and kept refrigerated

Over a double boiler, melt the chocolate with salt in a heatproof bowl. In a pot, melt down the sugar, water, and gelatin, bringing that up to a simmer. In a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, begin whipping your egg yolks. Once the gelatin and sugar have dissolved into the water, take that pot and pour the contents into the bowl with the egg yolks and continue to whip the egg yolks until they are pale yellow in color. At this point, mix in the melted chocolate first, and then fold into that the whipped cream to finish.

For initial assembly:
In a lined 8-inch ring mold, add in one of your cake rounds. Soak that round of cake with one third of the Ovaltine, and then spread on half of the mousse. Repeat these steps with the next round, preferably using the scrap layer either for the middle or bottom-most round, and then place on your last round of cake, and add in the last of your soak. Freeze the cake for at least 2 hours before removing it from the mold.

For the chocolate ganache:
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup milk
2/3 cups dark chocolate chips
a pinch of salt
1 stick unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature

In a pot, heat up the heavy cream and milk. Once it begins to simmer, take the pot off heat and add in the chocolate and salt. Allow the chocolate to sit in the cream and slowly melt for at least 2 minutes before attempting to stir it until smooth. In a bowl, start whipping the butter until soft and creamy. Add to that the chocolate, mixing until everything is fully combined. Transfer to a piping bag with a star attachment.

For garnish:
Rainbow sprinkles

Pipe about half of the ganache on top of the cake, and spread it in an even, flat layer. Then with the remaining ganache, pipe a border on top of that layer. Decorate the top with the rainbow sprinkles to finish.