Thin Mint Cake

by Colleen | January 14, 2009 6:31 pm

Today’s cake is a choco­latey mint layer cake.  My friends told me it tastes just like a girl scout thin mint cookie so that is what I’ve decided to call it!  I started with two 10 inch dev­ils food cakes soaked with a kahlua sim­ple syrup.  These were split and lay­ered with a mild mint flavoured French but­ter­cream.  To fin­ish off I crumb coated the entire cake with the mint but­ter­cream and then cov­ered it with a crust­ing choco­late Amer­i­can but­ter­cream.  Fresh mint leaves dipped in choco­late were used as dec­o­ra­tion and I also made a rose from choco­late mod­el­ing fon­dant which isn’t in this photo.

I will type up the entire recipe tonight and add it to this post, promise!

The cut cake show­ing the many lay­ers of mint cream and choco­late cake!

Recipe for Thin Mint Layer Cake

Com­po­nents

2 Dev­ils food cakes — I used 10 inch
French But­ter­cream
Amer­i­can But­ter­cream
Fresh Mint Leaves dipped in melted choco­late or ganache.
Choco­late Mod­el­ing Fon­dant for Rose if you like.

Dev­ils Food Cake
(You will need to use a dig­i­tal scale for these measurements)

Ingre­di­ents

12.6 oz. Cake flour
15.12 oz. Gran­u­late sugar
7.5 ounces Emul­si­fied short­en­ing
2.5 ounces Cocoa pow­der
0.38 ounce Salt
0.5 ounce Bak­ing pow­der
0.3 ounce Bak­ing soda
1.58 ounces Dry milk pow­der
0.3 fluid ounce Vanilla extract
2.5 ounces Corn syrup
11.35 fl. oz. Water, cold
10 oz Eggs

Method

1.    Mix the cake flour, sugar and emul­si­fied short­en­ing in a large mixer bowl on low speed for 5 minutes.

2.    Add the cocoa pow­der, salt, bak­ing pow­der, bak­ing soda, dry milk pow­der, vanilla, corn syrup and 1 quart (1 liter) cold water. Blend well, and then scrape down the bowl.

3.    Com­bine the eggs with the remain­ing 1 quart 8 ounces (1250 mil­li­liters) of cold water and add to the bat­ter in three equal parts, blend­ing well and scrap­ing down the bowl after each addition.

4.    After all the ingre­di­ents are incor­po­rated, blend on low speed for 2 minutes.

5.    Divide into greased and floured pans, scal­ing for each sheet pan or 1round layer.

6.    Bake at 340°F (170°C) until springy and a tooth­pick inserted in the cen­ter comes out clean.

French But­ter­cream

Ingre­di­ents

1 lb. 3 oz. Gran­u­lated sugar
3 ounces Corn syrup or glu­cose
6 fluid ounces Water
3 Eggs
10 Egg yolks
1 lb. 10 oz. Unsalted but­ter, room tem­per­a­ture
1 fluid ounce mint extract

Method

1.    Com­bine the sugar, corn syrup or glu­cose and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.

2.    Mean­while, place eggs and yolks in the bowl of a mixer fit­ted with the whip attach­ment; start whip­ping the mix­ture on medium speed the moment the sugar solu­tion begins to boil.

3.    Con­tinue boil­ing until the syrup reaches 250°F (121°C). When the syrup is ready, increase the mixer speed to high and care­fully pour the sugar syrup in a steady even stream down the inside of the bowl.

4.    Con­tinue whip­ping until the mix­ture is cool and mousselike.

5.    Reduce the speed to medium and grad­u­ally add the soft but­ter; whip until light and aerated.

6.    Add mint extract.
Amer­i­can Buttercream

Ingre­di­ents

1 pound Lightly salted but­ter, soft­ened
2 ounces Pas­teur­ized egg, optional
2 pounds Pow­dered sugar, sifted
2 tea­spoons mint extract

Method

1.    Using a mixer fit­ted with the pad­dle attach­ment, cream the but­ter until light and fluffy.

2.    Beat in the egg if desired. Grad­u­ally add the sugar, fre­quently scrap­ing down the sides of the bowl.

3.    Add the mint extract and con­tinue beat­ing until the icing is smooth and light.

Cake Assem­bly

Cut both cakes into two lay­ers.
Brush on some of the sim­ple syrup.
Fill lay­ers with mint french but­ter­cream.
Crumb coat all stacked lay­ers with mint but­ter­cream.
Freeze until crumb coat is solid.
Remove from freezer and frost cake with choco­late but­ter­cream.
Allow it to “crust” or dry some.  Using a Viva Brand paper towel (no pat­tern) place paper towel over frost­ing and smooth with frost­ing smooth­ing tool or hand.  Move paper towel around the cake con­tin­u­ing to smooth.  Dec­o­rate as you wish.  Eat and enjoy!

Orig­i­nal recipes cour­tesy of  On Bak­ing — Laben­sky (slight mod­i­fi­ca­tions by me)

Source URL: http://www.cakeartisan.com/2009/01/thin-mint-cake/

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