Chocolate Rapture Cake

Today is the day before spring break. For each class all we really did was play games, and not do any work. And for art today we colored some eggs. Some students (boys) broke their eggs. Last week we had 19 students in class but now since people went on early spring breaks there was only 8 kids in class including me. Most of my teachers were not very surprised. All they did was let us draw, color, and play games. After that we went home.
When I got home, my Ate Joelen came over with the ingredients to make my Chocolate Rapture Cake. Ate Joelen did not like the way the recipe was in the book. She said it did not give enough information. We worked together to make it and write how we made it. Here is the recipe for the Chocolate Rapture Cake that we made:

1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 white sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup shortening (we used Crisco brand)
3 (1 ounce) squares (baking) chocolate, melted
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup shredded coconut

Frosting:
2 cups heavy cream (I used 2 tubs of prepared vanilla frosting)
1 (1 ounce) square unsweetened chocolate (grated)
(1/4 cup shredded coconut)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and floured two 9 inch round cake pans.

Sift together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.
Add the shortening, melted chocolate, buttermilk and vanilla to another bowl.

Using a hand mixer, beat the shortening/chocolate mixture for 2 minutes.

Add the eggs, and beat for 2 more minutes.
Add the flour mixture slowly into the shortening/chocolate mixture until it was all mixed together.
Stir in the coconut.

Pour the batter into the two cake pans.

Bake the cake pans for 25 to 30 minutes.
Let the cakes cool.

While the cakes are cooling down, make the frosting.

In a bowl, put in the cold heavy cream (or prepared frosting).

Whip the cream with a hand mixer until it becomes thick and like a frosting.
With a microplane grater, grate the chocolate over the bowl of frosting.
Save some of the chocolate for the topping.
Add the coconut to the frosting and stir.
Frost the cooled cake with the whipped cream frosting.
Shave some extra chocolate with a grater and sprinkle it on top of the cake.

Ate Joelen brought her microplane and we used it in the recipe. She said that I can share this recipe in a Tasty Tools blog event. I am going to send this to her so she can put it in her blog too! We did not have a camera so Ate Joelen used her cell phone. She said she will be putting the pictures on my blog soon. I hope you like my first recipe!

Here is the cake all done and ready to eat. It was very good!

Hi! I'm Kristelle...

I am going to be learning how to cook from my cousin, Ate Joelen*. She is an expert at cooking food. I had just got a book called "My Chocolate Year". The author is Charlotte Herman. I got the book from Barnes & Noble. I chose this book because I really like to eat chocolates and I like reading about food that makes my mouth water.

This book is about a Jewish family. They also have family in Europe and are very concerned about them, because it takes place around the time when Hitler was killing many Jewish people. The book starts with a class who has a contest to see who could make the best sweet desserts and write the best essay. The winner of the contest gets to be in the newspaper, but then the contest turns into a bakery sale for the children in Europe. The class would send money to help the families in Europe.

In this book are the chocolate recipes the class makes. My Ate Joelen* and I decided to make one recipe from the book each month. So this will be updated when we finish making a recipe together. After we are all done I will have made one year of chocolate recipes.

The first recipe we will make is a chocolate rapture cake. I will post the recipe and the pictures next week. I hope you like my blog because I would really want to learn how to be a good baker. Thank you.

Kristelle

*Ate Joelen - "Ate" (pronounced like Ah-Tay) means big sister and is a sign of respect. Even though she is not my sister, she is like a big sister to me. You can look at her blog too. It's called Joelen's Culinary Adventures. This is her blog website.