Almond Joy Cake

It was my mom's birthday last week as well as my good friend's wedding! Such a party. My whole family came in to town (for the wedding) and so we were able to celebrate my mom's birthday together. I couldn't remember when the last time was that my mommy-kins had a birthday cake, so I decided to make her one! Mare-bear (Marilyn) loves Almond Joy's soooo much. So I wanted to bake her an Almond Joy inspired cake. I looked all over the internet for a good recipe but I just didn't think any of them looked that good. So I improvised and concocted my own. And I'm not gonna lie, it was honestly one of the best cakes I've ever had/made. IT WAS DA BOMB!

Here's the finished product:




Here's what I did.

I made two 8" chocolate cakes using my favorite simple recipe. Then I made a German chocolate cake filling, because it has coconut...like an Almond Joy...but instead of using walnuts I used sliced almonds.

When the cakes were cool I placed my first round on a cake platter, and I spread on some of my coconut-almond-filling. Then I placed my second round on top and put EVEN MORE coconut-almond goodness right on top of the cake. Then I put this in the fridge to cool.

Then I made what is perhaps the best frosting I have ever made in my life. I will share the recipe for it with you because I don't think it's fair to keep it to myself.

It's a variation of the whipped chocolate frosting from Baked. BUY THAT BOOK! To their recipe I added about a cup or so of powder sugar.

Here it is:

8oz bittersweet chocolate chopped up (get the good stuff)
8oz milk chocolate chopped up
1 1/2cups heavy cream (yes I know just wait)
2 Tbs light corn syrup
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter soft but cool cut into 1" chunks

my addition

powder sugar to taste/consistency

What you do is you bring the cream and corn syrup to a boil, and then you pour it over your chocolate which you should put in a metal mixing bowl. Let it sit and let it melt up a bit. Then you stir that GOODNESS together and once it is smooth, chunk by chunk while you're mixing add that butter. Yeah, just keep adding that butter.

Then! I added the confectioner's sugar because it needed a little something more. I refrigerated it to stiffen it up a bit and MAN! It is SOOOO GOOD. Not too sweet. Which can be dangerous because then you just keep SHOVING IT IN YOUR FACE.

And in case you're wondering it was actually really easy to frost over the coconut-almond filling on top of the cake. I was worried about that but it worked out fine!

Here's my mom enjoying the cake, and a sneak peak at the inside.




I had a good deal of almond-coconut filling and frosting left over so I decided to make some cupcakes with it. I used a yellow cake and put about a Tbs of filling in between two scoops of batter. It baked up yummy! I think you could even do like 2 Tbs of filling in the unbaked cupcake.



You can kind of see the almonds poking out down there at the bottom.

OK you can thank me later for how good that frosting is. I think I have some peach cakes that are burning in the oven.

KISSES,

Alison