Whiskey Cake

I wanted to bake a special cake for my husband's birthday. He's a lover of chocolate and peanut butter and I was going to plan on making him some sort of Reese's Cake. Until.... I came across a cake in the Cake Doctor book called "Mindy's Jack Cake with Tennessee Drizzle" which is made with Jack Daniels. I knew I found my cake!

I reviewed the recipe and then realize I did not have Jack Daniels and I did not want to bake a sheet cake, so I improvised and came up with my own Whiskey Cake!

I used some of Mr. Pint's Jim Beam in place of the Jack Daniels and placed my cake into two 6 inch pans and the rest of the batter into smaller 2 inch mini cheesecake pans.

I had a "vision" of these awesome cakes with caramel and ganache dripping down the sides of the cake in place of sweet butter cream frosting. I wanted it to be a strong and masculine cake and the vision in my head was just that. 

However, my execution needs some refinement... 

The Recipe according to the Cake Doctor: (My version)

Box of Yellow or Vanilla Cake mix with Pudding (Pillsbury Yellow Cake)
1 1/2 sticks (12 oz.) melted butter

3 eggs

1/2 cup Jack Daniels (1/2 cup Jim Beam)

3/4 cup milk

1 cup pecans (couldn't find in cupboard, must have eaten all of them)

1 cup mini chocolate chips (regular chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Mix cake, melted butter, milk, eggs, and whiskey in mixer until combined and pour into prepared 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle pecans and chocolate chips and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Drizzle from the book:
4 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons whiskey
1 tablespoon milk
2 cups powered sugar

Drizzle over cooled cake, wait 10 minutes, cut and serve.

Once they were done, I decided not to add the sugar glaze to the cake that the book had and decided to go with my vision of extreme decadence. 

I took 1/2 - 3/4 cup of caramels and melted them in the microwave with 2 tablespoons of whiskey. I thought I was saving time, effort and energy by using the caramels, but I should have made my own... That's what I get for cutting corners. It just took so long for the caramel to smooth out and for the lumps to go away. Lots and lots of stirring.

Love, love, love the look of this!

When it finally was done, I poured it over the cake and LOVED the look of it just running down the sides.

 With the two tiered cake, my vision called for caramel and ganache on both layers, but how do I do that?? I decided to same time, effort, and energy again, and added some melted Hot Fudge sauce to the first later. I thought I was being smart, turns out I was just cutting corners again and I should have waited until the ganache was made instead. Lesson learned. 

I covered the cake and popped it in the fridge overnight, so I could get a hours of sleep.

The next morning, I made some Whiskey Ganache.

9 oz chopped milk chocolate

1 cup cream

1 tablespoon whiskey

Heat cream to just a boil. Watch it so it doesn't boil over. Pour hot cream over chopped chocolate and let the heat melt the chocolate for 5 minutes.

Stir in the whiskey gently so as to not add excess air to the ganache.

Let cool and thicken. I let mine sit for over 30 minutes. Should have put it into the fridge...

Pour the ganache over the center of the cake and allow it to fall off t he edges and pool around the bottom. Once it stopped dripping, I decorated it with gold sprinkles.

Well, it didn't turn out exactly as I envisioned it, but it sure was delicious! Mr. Pint sure did like it and that is all that matters.

Love ya, Babe! 

I shared this with the following Linky Parties:
Marvelously Messy, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Add a Pinch, Skip to my Lou, It's Overflowing, Crazy for Crust, the Kurtz Corner, Someday Crafts, Mrs. Fox's Sweets, This Chick Cooks, Lady Behind the Curtain, Tidy Mom