Cake # 21 - White chocolate layer cake with Apricot Filling and White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

That's right, 4 layers...but only 2 cakes.

This is a middle layer.

Good gravy, this is not supposed to end like this.  Clumpy and not melty.  Again.

White. Chocolate. Is. My. Arch. Nemesis.  I have had troubles with white chocolate before, so I knew to handle it with extra caution.  It didn't help.  White chocolate is just evil.  In fact, it is not even chocolate - so it should not get the same love.

You may have noticed that the chronological order of these pictures is backwards.  That is because I wanted to show that the end result was good, even if we had to go about this the hard way.  I mean really, what is the deal with white chocolate?  Kind of like accounting, it is something many people understand, but I will never get it right.  After 2 attempts on the double boiler to get it to a smooth melty consistency, it was finally there.  But then cooling it, I went too far and it became solid as a rock with the knife standing straight up in it.  Gross.

This cake was not my cup of tea from the beginning.  But, like a couple of the others, it really surprised me.  The cake itself was delicious and moist.  The frosting was very good - though if blind taste testing, would I ever have guessed it was white chocolate?  No.  The fresh apricots were fun to use, but mainly because I could easily buy them in a tiny crate from Trader Joes.  

My household is not a huge fan of nuts on dessert.  We like nuts.  We like dessert.  We don't turn down dessert with nuts, but we just don't prefer to make them, which is why this cake only had half of its circumference covered in the requisite walnuts.  

Overall, this cake turned out to be a) a lot of work and b) totally delicious.  Not sure I am gunning to make it again, but several months after the fact, I am still craving it in a good way.  

Happy Baking!