Chocolate Bamboo Cake
 
Learn how to make a delicious chocolate cake that looks like a bushel of tropical multi-coloured bamboo!
Ingredients
For the chocolate cake:
  • 1¾ cups (220g) all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
  • 2 cups (400g) sugar
  • ¾ cups (65g) good cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup (250ml) buttermilk, shaken (or a scant cup of milk and one tbsp of lemon juice)
  • ½ cup (125ml) vegetable oil
  • 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup (250ml) freshly brewed hot coffee
For the Swiss meringue buttercream:
  • 5 egg whites
  • 1⅓ cups (260g) sugar
  • 1⅔ cups (385g) softened unsalted butter, cut into cubes
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • Pinch of salt
For the bamboo:
  • About 60 bamboo spears and about 300 bamboo tops
Method
Prepare the chocolate cake:
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare three 9'' cake pans. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl and mix until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 20 to 25 minutes (might go all the way to 40 minutes), until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.
Prepare the Swiss meringue buttercream:
  1. In a clean (meaning completely grease free - like all your tools for this buttercream should me) pot combine egg whites and sugar and whisk continuously (but not forcefully) over a pot of simmering water until the temperature of the egg whites reaches 145°F or until the sugar dissolves and the egg whites are hot. Place into a bowl and whip until the bowl is no longer warm (this will take about ten minutes and you will see your egg whites approaching stiff peak stage). With your (hand)mixer on low speed, add the butter one cube at a time until you get a silky smooth texture. Add vanilla and salt and mix well. If your mixture curdles keep on mixing on low speed and it should hopefully correct itself. If your mixture is too runny, place in the refrigerator for twenty minutes and beat again, possibly with some more butter.
Assembly:
  1. Place one layer of the chocolate cake onto a plate. Spread frosting onto the layer. Place the second layer of cake onto the frosting and frost it as well. Place the third layer of cake on top and spread a thin layer of frosting on the cake (you should have frosting left in your bowl - you just made a crumb coat). Place cake in the freezer for ten minutes and then frost with the remaining frosting. Press the bamboo spears around the cake and the bamboo tops onto the top of the cake.
Recipe by IronWhisk at http://www.ironwhisk.com/2012/02/chocolate-bamboo-cake/