Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cake

This is my new favorite cake. I've already started trying to talk Jim into baking it for my next birthday. "No way!" he said. "That's not on the Quick and Easy list. I saw how you sweated to make this cake. No, no no!" I think he's considering it.
Not only is this cake delicious, but I love it because the strawberry mousseline buttercream turned out perfectly! My last several adventures with buttercream have been misadventures, and I could see many possibilities for disaster in both of the frostings for this cake. Two frostings! And a cake that you slice in halves, stack, fill, and frost--SO many chances for things to go wrong.
But let's start with the cake. Jim did not see me sweating over the cake, which is actually pretty easy, especially if you have frozen egg whites. It makes me feel like a real baker to be able to reach in my freezer and pull out a plastic container of egg whites.

This white cake is no ordinary white cake--it's enhanced with melted white chocolate, which gives it a lovely je ne sais quoi. I had to use up all my odds and ends of white chocolate in order to get the requisite 8 ounces.

It also makes me feel like a real baker to have odds and ends of white chocolate in my freezer. I used to have normal things like frozen pizza in my freezer. Now I have eight or ten different chocolates, assorted nuts, lots of unsalted butter, and the aforementioned egg whites. I had to buy a new freezer for the normal things.

The dry ingredients and the butter. Don't worry--I remembered to attach the beater blade to the mixer itself. The batter is quite lovely and silky.

I weighed the batter going in to each cake pan so they'd be exactly the same.

And, of course, Rose was right--there was just enough batter left to make two cupcakes. You could also have made each layer just a smidge bigger, but then you wouldn't have had the cupcakes.

With the cakes out of the oven, it was time to try my bête noire--buttercream. Strawberry mousseline buttercream, to be precise. I wanted so badly to make a perfect buttercream. The buttercream gods have not been watching over me lately. And I noticed, while reading through the instructions for the fourth or fifth time, that it wasn't wise to try this particular mousseline in humid weather. I rummaged through some junk in the basement and found an old barometer. According to it, the kitchen's humidity was 52%.

My research told me that 52% is veering toward very high humidity, so, even though it wasn't hot, I turned on the air conditioning to squeeze some of the water out of the air. I did not want the buttercream to dissolve into a puddle, the way Faithy's does!
For whatever reason, everything fell into place today.
The sugar syrup cooked to the right temperature.

The egg whites turned into meringue, and there were no missteps while adding the sugar syrup. The meringue turned the already fluffy buttercream into a mixture that was airier than air.

The final addition of strawberry butter turned it into perfection.

I can't tell you how pleased I was with myself.

Not only did the mousseline look and taste wonderful, but it also spread on the cake like a dream. (I just noticed that my nail polish matches the frosting--I didn't plan that, honestly). I was beginning to think that everything was going to go perfectly. Apparently that is a thought you should not have.
So pleased was I with the mousseline that I forgot to fret about the possibility of the cake layers falling apart as I placed them on top of each other. Cake layer #3 did just that.

Jim must not have had the heart to take a picture of the broken pieces of the cake layer before I shoved them back together, using the mousseline as glue. But you can see that this layer is not intact.

The layer-of-crumbs also prevented the cake from being an even and upright pillar, turning it more into The Leaning Tower of Cake.
Frankly, it was a good thing the chocolate frosting wasn't hard to make because all of a sudden, I was very tired, and I had to will myself into doing the final frosting round. But as soon as I started pouring on the runny, sticky stuff, I was back on my game.

I'd already given up hope that the final cake would stand tall and elegant. It was too lumpy for elegance.

Still, there's something impressive about a four-layer cake. Even though this one wasn't going to win any prizes for beauty, it wasn't laughable.

And the different colors and textures make it downright impressive when you cut into it!
If I were grading this cake as a whole, I'd definitely give it an A. If I were grading the components, I'd give the cake an A (light, moist--a delicious "plain" cake); the mousseline an A+ (lick-the-beaters delicious); the chocolate frosting a B (interesting but not as good as ganache). I'm eager to see if everyone else liked it as much as I did.

TASTING PANEL
Jim: "The cake itself is delicious. I love the contrast between the sweet, fluffy mousseline and the layer of plain preserves."
Ben: "This cake is awesome!"
Karen: "It's so pretty. I think it's one of the best you've made. Can I have seconds?"