The unintended bonus resulting from having spilled the cake was that I actually got to taste some of the cake. It was, indeed, lusciously buttery and very moist, but not so rich as to be overpowering. It turned out to be a lovely base for the frosting, which was Rose's classic mocha espresso buttercream (made by adding 6 oz. bittersweet chocolate and 2 Tbsp of instant espresso powder to one recipe of neoclassical buttercream). Let me just say, that frosting was INSANE, it was so good. And I don't even really like coffee. Anyway, the cake was assembled and dirty iced, then covered with interwoven fondant strips to resemble basket weave. There is actually some wood graining on the fondant, achieved by striping a sheet of fondant with gel icing color and twisting before rolling out again. The strips were pressed onto a woven placement to create some wicker-like texture as well. Two fondant ropes were then intertwined to make the basket border.
A white sheet of fondant was draped over the top to cover the frosting and reduce dead space, then the yarn balls were placed on top. I was thinking of trying to make needles out of sugar, but ran out of time, so just used wooden dowels colored silver instead. All in all, it came together quite well, and I was pleased with the taste.
Ratings:
Overall - 7
Crumb - 7 / moist, light, slightly crumbly
Flavor - 8 / great buttery flavor, not too rich
Appearance - 7 / standard appearance, sides were a little overbrowned while top was slightly pasty; probably would benefit from baking strips
Ease of baking - 8 / simple, no extra steps
Details:
Bakeware - 9" square pan and 7 3/4" square pan per recipe (cakes are on the thinner side)
Oven temperature - 350 degrees
Bake time - 25 minutes
Notes - 9" square was thinner and baked faster. Top remained pasty, but was removed when cakes were leveled for assembly.
