Author Ellie Fields weaves small town charm, baking recipes, and gardening tips into her cozy mysteries. Her diverse fictional town of Cricket Creek is an amalgam of the small towns up and down the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where she lives and where she finds inspiration for her stories and characters. Learn more about her and her books at her website. Who Doesn't Love Chocolate?
Um…that would be me, actually. What??? Seriously????
Truthfully, it’s not that I don’t like chocolate, it’s that I’d rather enjoy something lemon-y or coconut-y, especially when it comes to cakes. But given that my friends, family, and hubby all love chocolate, that’s the flavor of cake I usually make for birthdays, and wow, do I have a fabulous chocolate cake recipe that everyone seems to love!
In Wedding Planned to Death, my amateur sleuth Cicely Rue is a gardener, not a baker. In fact, the only thing she likes baking are pies and pizza. She’d much rather have her hands deep in the rich soil of her garden than in a bowl of batter (although she did win the blue ribbon for her pies at the County Fair ten years running). In fact, she loves gardening so much that when she’s laid off from her job, she starts a business hosting weddings in her lovely flower garden.
Cicely's best friend Josie Barrett owns Creeky Sweets, a bakery in the small fictional town of Cricket Creek, California, and she bakes like a dream. She even bakes the cakes for the weddings Cicely hosts at her place. I love writing Josie’s character, because I can almost smell and taste all the goodies in the bakery as I write. Usually, when I’m done writing one of the scenes set in Creeky Sweets, I’m inspired to bake something, which my friends and hubby always appreciate! And each time I create some delicious confection, I save the recipe to use in one of my Wedding Garden Cozy Mystery books.
In Wedding Planned to Death, I shared one of the recipes from Josie’s bakery that included lavender from Cicely’s garden: Creeky Sweets Lavender and Lemon cookies. I also included a recipe for a pie Cicely Rue bakes in the story: Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. Both are delicious, and I knew that for the next book in the series, Grave the Date, I needed to include other equally yummy recipes. I had several picked out from cakes, cookies, and breads I’ve baked before, but ended up not including my favorite chocolate cake recipe in the book. It’s too good not to share, though, so here it is.
First, though, answer me this: Do you love chocolate? Or are you like me, more of a fan of other flavors? And if so, what’s your favorite cake flavor?
Chocolate Decadence Cake
Ingredients:
3 cups (plus 2 tablespoons) all-purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
1-1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
4 large eggs
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
1-1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup warm dark coffee
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Butter or Crisco to coat the cake tins
Three parchment paper circles to fit the bottom of 9-inch cake pans
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Using a paper towel, coat three nine inch cake pans with butter or Crisco, then sift flour into the pans and shake to make sure the butter is thoroughly coated. Tap out excess. Place parchment paper circles inside the cake pan. Set pans aside somewhere cool.
Using a wire whisk (or on low speed if you’re using a stand mixer), mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt until thoroughly incorporated.
In a separate bowl, add the eggs, buttermilk, warm water, warm coffee, oil, and vanilla, then beat by hand with a wire whisk just until the eggs are broken up.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry, beating with a wire whisk for about five minutes or if using a stand mixer, about two to three minutes until the cake mixture is smooth and the wet and dry ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Be careful to not overmix.
Using a tare scale or another method, divide the batter equally among the three pans.
Bake for 30-35 minutes. Check for doneness by sticking a toothpick in the middle. If the toothpick comes out clean, your cake is done. If it’s sticky, bake for another two minutes, then test again, using a fresh toothpick. Be careful to test quickly, as you don’t want all the heat to escape your oven.
Cool in the pans on wire racks. I typically cool ten to twenty minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake. Put a wire rack on top of the cake, grab it carefully, then flip it over and hopefully the cake will slide right out of the pan. If you’re using parchment paper, be sure to peel the paper off at this point. Allow to cool completely (at least another hour).
Layer the cake, adding a ring of Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttermilk on the bottom layer and filling it in with chocolate ganache. Repeat for the next layer. Add the top layer, then crumb-coat the cake with a thin layer of the Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. Set in the refrigerator for an hour. When the frosting is solid, remove cake from refrigerator and coat with a generous layer of the frosting, then serve and enjoy!
Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients:
8 ounces heavy cream
16 ounces semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate (room-temperature)
Grate the chocolate and place it in a dry medium-sized bowl. Set it aside. Grating the chocolate results in an easier melt. (Note: be sure all utensils are dry.)
In a heavy saucepan, heat cream over medium heat until little bubbles begin to form along the edges. Do NOT boil! I never leave my saucepan at this step.
Pour the cream into a dry medium-sized bowl. Carefully add the chocolate to the cream, stirring until just incorporated. Let it sit for five minutes, unbothered.
Once the mixture has set for five minutes, with a dry wooden spoon, stir the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is fully incorporated into the cream.
Cool completely, then whip for five minutes on high in a stand mixer.
Put in a piping bag to use as the filling in the cake.
Chocolate Cream Cheese Buttermilk Frosting
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
8 ounces full-fat cream cheese, softened
1-1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cold dark coffee
7-8 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/4 cup (or less) milk
Using a hand or stand mixer, beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy.
Slowly incorporate the cocoa powder, then add the vanilla and cold coffee and beat until thoroughly incorporated.
Add the sifted powdered sugar, one cup at a time. If the mixture gets too thick, add milk, one tablespoon at a time until it gets to a good spreading consistency (this is a thick frosting so be sure not to add too much milk).
Wedding Planned to DeathA Wedding Garden Cozy Mystery, Book 1
When introverted gardener Cicely Rue loses her job and learns she and her son (along with her dog, cat, and all her chickens) may have to move away from Cricket Creek, wedding planner Sabrina Mattingly—the town’s former bully—tosses her a lifeline by offering a contract to host a wedding in Cicely’s picturesque flower garden.
Cicely’s at first reluctant (host weddings? with people?), but given the choice between losing her home or becoming more sociable, she soon agrees to turn her garden into a wedding venue. Even as Cicely grows increasingly nervous, the town vendors excitedly prepare for the wedding. The wedding plans are coming along beautifully . . . until the wedding planner turns up dead and buried in Cicely's compost heap!
Milo Levine may be a brilliant detective, but he’s dead wrong when he makes Cicely his prime suspect just because her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon. Doesn’t seem to matter that Milo had once been her friend, nor does it matter that Cicely has a blooming suspicion others in town have motive for murder.
Despite Milo ordering her to steer clear of the investigation, Cicely and her dog Otis dig for clues rooted deep in the town’s history to prove she’s not a murderer—and to find out who is before Cicely becomes the murderer's next victim!
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