TWD: Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cakes

Hi everyone! I'm back in Northeastern Town, for a few days, anyway. 

First of all, Louisville?  You should SO totally go to there.  I am disappointed that I was usually too tired to go exploring much (reading and scoring 125+ exams a day for 6 days will kinda do that to ya), but what little I did see was surprisingly awesome.  I have every intention of dragging someone there if for nothing but the Bourbon Trail.

This week's TWD recipe was chosen by Amy of Amy Ruth Bakes.  Excellent selection!  I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but it was a real winner.  It's a quick and easy variation on the humble chocolate layer cake;  only this one is done in a loaf pan instead of round or square pans, torted and filled with preserves and then iced with a super easy icing (it's just chocolate and sour cream.).  I was able to bang this out in a couple of hours.

I have very few pictures this week.  For one, the cake was so fast and easy to do, there really wasn't much of interest to photograph;  for two, my bum of a camera finally quit me, in spectacularly dramatic fashion, after a 5 year relationship.  Meh.  He wasn't no good noway.

The batter was mixed in standard butter cake fashion.  It came out to be a pretty thick batter, so I knew it'd be a nice sturdy cake, good for torting.  I did half the recipe and got three small loaf pans out of it.

Normally, when I torte cake, I refrigerate the aych out of it first.  It makes cutting it neatly so, so much easier.  In this case, I was impatient, plus I figured the cakes were small and sturdy enough to not really need it.

 I was right.  They sliced beautifully with a sharp knife.

For the filling, I used the last of a jar of apricot-raspberry preserves, which went very well with the iced cake.  I did the whole recipe of filling and of icing but I still only had enough for two cakes.  This was fine by me.

All in all, it's a very simple and satisfying layer cake.  The cake itself is a perfect texture, the icing is not overpoweringly sweet or bitter, and the preserves add a nice polite bit of interest. If I was sitting around the house and in the mood for chocolate cake, I'd totally consider making this one.  It's a little simpler than my *ahem* State-Fair-blue-ribbon-winning-chocolate cake, but it does the job.