Chocolate Dulce de Leche Cake

In my last post  I made "Chocolate AlmondTriangles", and  talked about making the cake in a more traditional round shape, and simplifying the frosting.  That is just what I've done here (with a different flavoring for the frosting, as well).  Buttercream is usually one of the hardest things to make, especially for novice bakers or those with modest equipment.  Buttercream goes from the traditional method of trying to beat a hot sugar syrup into beaten egg whites, to beating the egg whites with the sugar, to using egg whites from a carton, and now to using Marshmallow Fluff instead of beating the egg whites from scratch.  Instead of spending 20 -30 minutes to make one batch of buttercream, you can probably do it in 5-10 minutes, and it's just as delicious as the real thing.  But even with this method, problems can arise, unless you follow the recipe carefully.  Make sure that you use only Marshmallow Fluff, and not another brand, as MF has nothing artificial in it except for vanillin. Instead of doing a random design on the top of the cake ( mine looks like ghosts or wisemen, but I was really just playing), it would be easy to write "HAPPY NEW YEAR" or whatever else you might like to write. Please note that if you want to pipe on any decorations, you’ll need to make more buttercream, as you really just have enough to get the cake frosted.

This recipe can now be found on my CD-rom or download: Amazing Desserts - A Photographic Guide to Better Baking. For order information, please click on MY BOOKS, above.