It was a dark, cold, wintry night when it hit me out of the blue! A premonition, but for cake 😂
So it was @merenludick 's 16th birthday recently, and I've really had to pull rabbits out of a hat each birthday, as I somehow, to my delight and exhausted body (it can take up to a week of bed rest to recover from 1 cake!), I have to always outdo myself! Self-improvement, right? Also, if you don't try, you'll never learn! So, when I asked Meren what cake he would like for this momentous occasion, he just said: "chocolate." Like, great. Thanks buddy, that really narrows it down 🤣 I mean, I've baked him everything from a shark cake to a Spider cake, and let's not forget last year's incredible Space Cake (my absolute best yet): but they were ALL chocolate cakes!
I mean, I do have an incredible Chocolate Cake recipe which I can practically make blindfolded, but I reeeeeeeally wanted something even "chocolateier," if that could even be possible.
We are in the middle of winter here, and I wanted to find a warm chocolate recipe. I remember quite a few years ago, one of @matthew-williams's friends' moms brought Matthew a hot chocolate cake, and my lord was it divine. I've always wanted to try to find the right recipe and give it a whirl, but I've just never gotten around to it.
I figured I would probably just use my usual chocolate cake recipe, serve it warm, covered in ganache, and that would be simple enough, but I went digging on the internet and struck GOLD!!
This recipe was moist and dark and a bit heavier than my usual cake recipe, which definitely helped it retain its shape for easy serving whilst dishing it hot.
We served it with caramel and vanilla swirl ice cream, and it was absolutely GLORIOUS!
So, let's get into it, shall we?
Ingredients (American Measurements) :
For the Cake:
I doubled up on the original ingredients, since I was using such a big dish and feeding hungry teenagers! It was all still completely gone within 24 hours.
- 2 cups of milk
- 1 cup of oil
- 2/3 cup of cocoa
- 6 large eggs
- 1 1/2 Sugar
- 3 cups of flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- A pinch of salt
Chocolate Ganache
1 kg dark chocolate
200ml fresh cream
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°
Baking time: 45 min. Remove the cake from the oven and insert a skewer to ensure it's baked through. If the skewer comes out clean, you're good to go, but if there is batter stuck to the skewer, you need to return it to the oven for another 15 minutes or so. Do this step as fast as you can to avoid your cake flopping and sinking in the middle.
It's always important to add dry ingredients separately at 1st, but even more important is creaming the eggs with the sugar until they're completely combined, light and fluffy, and there are no granules at all. You can do this on high speed with your electric beater. With dry ingredients, it's important to run them all through a sieve to eliminate any lumps and to aerate the ingredients.
Once I had creamed the eggs, I added the rest of the wet ingredients and blended some more, this time on a lower setting.
Once you add the dry ingredients, you really don't want to overmix the ingredients, as this can lead to serious flops. STUPIDLY easy to mess up, so pay attention.
For your ganache, use a large, heavy-based pot and warm up the cream on a low heat. I bought my dark chocolate in pieces so it was ready to melt. If you use bars of chocolate, chop the chocolate into finer pieces for easier and faster melting time.
The biggest mistake most people make is burning the chocolate, and that is a very expensive tragedy that you cannot come back from.
As your cream warms you can start adding your chocolate pieces, stirring constantly to ensure even melting. Once you're done, you will have the most decadent icing of them all: Chocolate Ganache!!
The oven buzzed just as I was done with the ganache, and I just poured it straight over the cake, added sprinkles, sparklers, and some candles, and served it piping hot, straight out of the oven with caramel and vanilla icing.
I'll definitely be doing this one again. In fact, very soon, as @Matthew-Williams' birthday is on the 27th of July and he's asked for exactly the same cake!
