World of Warcraft's Delicious Chocolate Cake

Premises and Promises

In order to bridge the gap between World of Warcraft and my kitchen, I've decided to embark on a new endeavor to make WoW food in real life. That is to say that I will be taking in-game recipes and attempting to recreate them in my own kitchen.

There will, of course, be a certain amount of improvisation on my part, in order to make some of these (unrealistic) recipes work; however, I do intend to stick as closely to the game recipes as possible. As time goes on, I also intend to branch out into recipes from other video games, but in the beginning it will be purely WoW items. If there's one you'd like to suggest, please send me a PM.

Blizzard's Delicious Chocolate Cake

I figured that a good place to start would be with a popular item from Burning Crusade days - the Delicious Chocolate Cake. (Since I am a pastry chef, I intend to stick to the baked goods, but we'll see where things go in the future.)

Recipe Assessment

Things to note about this recipe:

• Simple Flour, not cake flour - this means the cake will be light and fluffy.
• Ice Cold Milk - this means the cake will be rich, especially in ratio to the flour
• Mild Spices - perhaps this could be the chocolate? I'm not sure what to use for this.
• Small Egg - high ratio of eggs-to-flour. This cake will be rich and thick after all.
• Flask of Port - quite a large amount of alcohol, although this could be tasty.
• Mageroyal - this could be lumped into the spices, or add an accent to the chocolate.
• There is no chocolate listed in the ingredients. Interesting.
• There is no sugar listed in the ingredients. Also interesting.
• There are berries in the picture (below) but not in the recipe. Heh.

Image Assessment

The first thing that I noticed is the icon doesn't look anything like a chocolate cake. It looks like white cake with some sort of berry filling and green goo on top. I could decorate it to look like that, but let's see what the item looks like in-game.



So in-game, the actual item looks (or is presumed to look) more like a chocolate cake with some berries on top. I'll shoot for this model because it seems more fitting for the name anyhow.

Kelley's Delicious Chocolate Cake

Now that I'd seen what the original recipe and cake look like, it was time for me to recreate this in my own kitchen. I decided to do this in the style used by Mythbusters. I'd make one cake using the exact recipe from the game (substituting spices/mageroyal as I see fit). Then I'd make another cake using the recipe but expanding it to make it an actual delicious chocolate cake.

Translated WoW Recipe

• 8x Simple Flour = 2 cups flour (assuming 1 part = 1/4 cup)
• 4x Ice Cold Milk = 1 cup milk (assuming 1 part = 2 tbsp)
• 4x Mild Spices = 4 tbsp cocoa (assuming spices = chocolate)
• 8x Small Egg = 4 extra-large eggs (cause who can find small eggs?)
• Flask of Port = 1/2 cup port wine
• 3x Mageroyal =1 tsp lavender (it's a flower, at least!)

I decided to go for the normal (non-French) mixing style and just mix the wet ingredients and then add the dry ingredients. The batter turned out looking pretty good.


I was a bit leery, however, that the recipe called for four eggs, but no leavening of any sort. Would the cake rise?


That's right, folks. The cake came out very flat and very dense.

So dense, in fact, that I decided to use it as a makiwara.


It barely rose, meaning the final cake was about 1.5 inches in thickness. It had barely any flavor (thanks to there being no sugar in the recipe, Blizzard).

So. Almost total fail. Next it was time to try this with some revisions, because by now it was clear that I needed a real delicious chocolate cake.

Kelley's Revised Recipe

• 8x Simple Flour = 1.75 cups flour
• 4x Ice Cold Milk = 1 cup milk
• 4x Mild Spices = .75 cup cocoa, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking soda
• 8x Small Egg = 2 extra-large eggs + .5 cup vegetable oil
• Flask of Port = 1/2 cup port wine + 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3x Mageroyal =1 tsp lavender (it's a flower, at least!)
• MISSING SUGAR = 2 cups sugar

As you can see, I altered the recipe to include some leavening, some sugar, and a slight alteration of wet-to-dry ratio. I also replaced some of the flour with more cocoa. The batter turned out nice and dark, and had a bit more volume than the first recipe.


The cakes rose beautifully, and I had no trouble at all removing them from the rings.


I baked two cakes and cut them both in half in order to stack them. I used three for stacking and the other for tasting. The cake was chocolatey and moist, but the port was a bit... odd. I knew I would need a very tasty frosting in order to even out the flavors. And I was glad that the images showed berries on the cake, too.

The Delicious Chocolate Cake

I decided to use a chocolate fudge frosting to fill between the layers and on the top. I also used sliced strawberries in between the layers, and halved strawberries to garnish the top of the cake.


So, the cake looked pretty, and actually rather WoW-ish. But... would it taste good? I sliced a piece and gave it a taste. The fudge frosting and strawberries were actually pretty perfect for balancing out the flavors. Yay~!

Final Thoughts

Blizzard was on the right track with this recipe, but in actuality, it didn't turn out so well. Hint: if you're going to use the word delicious in the name of your cake, you had better put some sugar in it. I'd also recommend leaving the port wine out, and replacing it with something more tasty, like coffee or maybe even some Kahlúa -- and less of it.

Oh, and by the way -- yes, it's completely gluten-free.

Petit Fors and Custard Cups

This week at school has been super busy. We did a dessert buffet for the Open House on Thursday night, so each of us had to create two mini desserts for the buffet. We had to consider color, shape, flavor, texture, volume, warm/cold, etc.

My two initial ideas were these (click to view them bigger):


The results? Well, I didn't realize just HOW small they had to be, so my idea for the Mayan Chocolate cakes had to be scaled down a bit more than I wanted. I omitted the chantilly cream in the center.My joconde biscuit turned out lighter in color than I intended, so I had to change from a chocolate mousse on top to a bavarian cream so that the colors matched better. Also, the pecans in the ganache were way too big, so they screwed up the uniformity of my display. Argh. I also wanted to make blue chocolate decorations for the tops, but I couldn't get the color I wanted, so I went with dark chocolate instead. My instructor chastised me for using blue, because the French say that the color on the outside needs to indicate the flavor on the inside. Bah! I still think the colors turned out gorgeous.



The other dessert turned out pretty much as I had planned. I decided against the brittle, however, because I didn't want it to get soggy and melt into the custards while they sat in the fridge between Tuesday and Thursday night. I also didn't get to put a cherry jelly inside the chocolate straws - it just wasn't feasible since they're so delicate. These were absolutely delicious, but the lime flavor kind of overpowered the coconut. Boo.

Beginnings in Sugarcraft

I've spent the past two months working on various projects in my pastry class, all of which added up to a final presentation and grade. Last night was our final night, where we had to present five of our creations in an attractive display: wedding cake, pastillage showpiece, sugar showpiece, chocolate box, and a fresh-made mousse cake. (Be sure to click all the images to see them larger.)

The Wedding Cake

As I'm sure you already know, my wedding cake was the mermaid cake I wrote about not too long ago. Since they were foam forms, we were able to keep them for the past few weeks until the final.

The Pastillage Showpiece

I have already written about this too, but only had some crappy cell phone pictures to show you. Now I was able to take some better ones with my real camera!

The Sugar Showpiece

The sugar showpiece was to be an underwater scene made entirely of sugar. The base, water, seaweed, and coral were made of poured sugar (boil it to horrendous temperatures and pour into various things for different effects). The pumice was made of rock sugar (boil sugar and add a spoonful of royal icing at a certain temperature to make it all foamy). The fish and jellyfish were made of isomalt, which was blown and pulled for various effects. Unfortunately, most of my jellyfish's tentacles broke off. :(

The Chocolate Box

The chocolate box was made completely out of chocolate, which we tempered the hard way - on a marble slab. :P The decorations on top were piped onto plastic and very carefully glued on with chocolate (and the help of some awesome chef's grade canned air stuff to freeze the chocolate solid very quickly).

The Mousse Cake - Night and Fire

For the mousse cake, we had a few different ones to choose from. I chose this one because, well, I like it! The bottom is a pistachio genoise, the middle is a chocolate hazelnut mousse, and the top is a raspberry mousse. It's topped of with a thin layer of raspberry glaze, wrapped in some more tempered chocolate, and decorated with some of my leftover chocolate decorations (from the box) and strawberries (because we were all out of raspberries - boo!).


All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the way things turned out, although everything could have been a lot better. :P

Vertical Layer Cake - First Try

Have you seen Dimitrana's gorgeous cakes? I know, they're fantastic. And when I saw all of her incredible vertically layered cakes, I knew I had to give the technique a try.

I wanted to make a quick go of it, and concentrate on the technique, not the fanciness of the ingredients. So, I was excited to find that my local Super Target had a full stock of the new Betty Crocker gluten-free baking mixes! I chose the devil's food cake mix, and a couple of gluten-free frostings.

The cake is chocolate, of course, and I bought a white icing which I spiked with peppermint extract and green coloring. It was light, fluffy, and creamy, which was what I wanted... but that also made it slippery and a bit difficult to wrap into the swirly cake construction. After putting it together and refrigerating for a while, I iced it with the chocolate frosting and decorated with a bit of green frosting ( and some of the leftover mint cream).

My family loved it, and I was very pleased with the new Betty Crocker cake mix! As you can see, however, I still have some work to do regarding the structure of the cake layers. It was fun, though! :)

New Confectionery Creations!

While it is true that I have been neglecting my bloggery of late, I haven't been a complete slacker. I've been spending nearly ALL of my free time creating new goodies!


Gluten-Free Lemon and Key Lime Tartlets
I made these for my mom's birthday back in October (yes, I said October). My family loved them!



Gluten-Free Key Lime Spritz Cookies
Light, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth spritz cookies with a hint of key lime, decorated with a tangy key lime glaze.
Buy them here!


Gluten-Free Strawberry Spritz Cookies
Light, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth spritz cookies with a hint of strawberry lime, decorated with a tart strawberry glaze.
Buy them here!


Gluten-Free Mint Chocolate Cookies
Chocolate sugar cookies, covered in a mint chocolate ganache and decorated with royal icing. They are DELICIOUS when chilled!
Buy them here!


Gluten-Free Mocha Sandwich Cookies
Chocolate sugar cookies, sandwiched with a rich, creamy, mocha ganache. These things are to DIE for, and also taste awesome chilled.
Buy them here!


Gluten-Free Robust Decorated Sugar Cookies
These are a rich version of a sugar cookie, made with rice flour, almond flour, and coconut flour! The result is a delicious, buttery shortbread-like sugar cookie. Decorated with royal icing, in two sizes!
Buy them here!

Dark Chocolate Challenge

Kim and I decided that we needed a little baking challenge. We asked our co-worker to choose an ingredient that we would both have to use in a baking creation. He got together with some of our other co-workers and they came up with our mysery ingredient: dark chocolate. Immediately, we knew this was going to be a challenge for both of us, since neither of us like dark chocolate! That night we went home to make our plans. The next night was for baking. And the following morning we had to bring our creations to the office for tasting and judging.

Kim's Creation: Dark Chocolate Cheesecake Bars with Fresh Berries
[no photos! boo.]
Despite the fact that she doesn't like cream cheese, and thus doesn't like cheesecake, Kim made the most delicious chocolate cheesecake I've ever tasted. The crust was crisp and chocolaty, and the cake was made with raspberry yogurt and chocolate, so it had the most wonderful flavor! We all took one bite and were in heaven.


Kelley's Creation: Dark Chocolate Mint Cupcakes with Mint Creme Filling

I was struggling on what to do with this dark chocolate, and finally decided that if I was going to experiment, I might as well go out on a limb and make mint cupcakes. I've never baked with mint before, and while I know chocolate+mint is a winning combination, I didn't know how it would turn out in cake form.

For the cake and mint creme filling, I used a recipe from my Chocolate and Coffee Bible. Of course, I used my gluten-free flour mixture for the cupcakes, and I have to say that I am very pleased with the results. This is probably the best gluten-free cake I've made so far. It was moist and springy, and had a great consistency all the way through. And the hint of mint was very nice. The mint creme recipe I used from the book wasn't very satisfactory in my opinion. It was basically whipping cream and mint extract (with some green food coloring, which I added). It quickly sunk into the cakes. I think next time I will add a little powdered sugar and maybe a bit of butter to give it some more flavor and consistency. The frosting was a complete experiment. I melted a bar and a half of Ghirardelli 70% chocolate with a stick of butter, then added two cups of powdered sugar and some mint extract. It turned out rich and delicious, although I didn't have enough to cover all 18 cupcakes - I got about 15 of them.

I am also pretty pleased with the way they look. They taste wonderful right out of the refrigerator, since you get that rush of coolness not only from the temperature but also from the mint in the cupcakes. I also nuked one of the non-frosted ones for about 10 seconds and it was delicious warm, too. The mint creme melted into the cake and gave it a nice added moist, minty flavor. Yum!


And the winner is: Kim!
We handed out samples to all of our co-workers and students that were in the office. Although we didn't have an official vote (everyone was preoccupied, preparing for Hurricane Ike), I think the answer was clear. Even I voted for Kim's cheesecake! It was to. die. for. (I mean, really, who can win against cheesecake?!)

Chocolate & Spice Make Everything Nice

I wanted to bake something that I could slather in chocolate ganache, and lately I have been craving autumn spices, so this seemed like a pretty good combination. I used this recipe for spice cookies, added a little bit of cloves, and substituted my gluten-free flour mixture. I also halved the recipe, since I wanted to make these little bite-sized cookies and I didn't want a million of them.

They came out really well! They're nice and crispy, and the amount of spice is just right. The ganache is 2 parts semi-sweet chocolate, 1 part dark chocolate, and 1 part super dark chocolate. These cookies have quite a bite to them, so I'm glad I made them as tiny as I did.

Click the pictures to see them larger.

Cupcakes Make Everything Better!

Today is Memorial Day, but it's also my dad's birthday. In lieu of a birthday gift this year (I never know what to buy him anyway), I decided to bake some cupcakes - which is way better than some store bought cake anyhow.

I saw Chockylit's recipe for chocolate cupcakes stuffed with strawberry chocolate ganache and frosted with chocolate glaze and buttercream and I was in love.



The cupcakes came out sunken in the middle, which created a bit of a predicament when trying to fill them. In the end, I decided to just pour the filling into the sunken middles instead of cutting off the tops. But they were so messy and somewhat ugly that I decided to use a store-bought cake mix for a second batch. The results? The store-bought ones look pretty, but the from-scratch recipe tastes SO much better! My family loved them. They are the first thing I have baked that wasn't gluten free in a year and a half (the store-bought mix, anyway).