On a day to day basis, we eat healthy. And by eating healthy I don’t mean only blanched, tasteless vegetables and boring old porridge, but food that is home cooked, made from carefully selected ingredients and whenever possible, organic and all natural. We are not big on calorie counting (never done it and never will), but we are careful about our sugar intake. But we are also huge believers that once in a while, one is entitled to a true old-fashioned splurge and this decadent chocolate cake is one of those come-to-te-dark-side moments.
I had some stellar ingredients at hand and what with an impending wedding (MY wedding) in the horizon, stress levels are soaring high. And what do we do when the S-word is coming? We gorge – on chocolate.
On a side note, NEVER mix a full time job, higher studies AND marriage planning together. NEVER. You can choose two but never all three. Tried and suffering.
Anyways, I must say that this is the chocolatiest chocolate cake that I have ever tasted. It’s slathered with a silky chocolate ganache and filled with chocolate fudge filling in between thick, chocolaty cake. The pictures don’t really do justice but hope they help!
Chocolatiest chocolate cake
- Prep Time : 30 minutes
- Cook Time : 20 minutes
- Yield : 16 pieces
Ingredients
- Plain Flour - 1 ½ cups
- White sugar - 2 cups (I used brown sugar)
- Baking powder - 1 ½ tsps
- Cocoa powder - ¾ cups, unsweetened (I used Cadbury)
- Eggs - 2, large
- Buttermilk - 1 cup
- Butter - ½ cup, melted
- Dark chocolate - 50g, chopped (I used 70% cocoa Lindt cooking chocolate)
- Hot water - 1 cup
- Vanilla extract - 1 tblp
- Chocolate ganache
- Bittersweet chocolate - 275g, finely chopped
- Heavy cream - 1 cup
- Sugar - 5 tblsps (optional)
- Fudge filling
- 250g, finely chopped - Bittersweet chocolate (I used 70% cocoa Lindt cooking chocolate)
- Heavy cream - ¾ cup
- Light corn syrup - 1/3 cup
- For decoration (optional)
- Silver and gold coated balls
- Chocolate curls
Instructions
To make the cake
- Sift together flour and baking powder. Add to it the sugar and the cocoa.
- Add in the eggs, melted butter, buttermilk and the vanilla and beat until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth.
- Add to this the hot water. The mixture should be quite runny now.
- Chop up the dark chocolate to small pieces about 1/2 a centimeter each. Add them in last so that they wouldn't melt in the hot water. Mix well so that they are evenly distributed.
- Line two baking pans. If round opt for 9 inches radius, if square, opt for 6 inches width. Pour even amounts to these pans. Bake until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
To make the ganache
- Break the chocolate into small pieces. Place in a medium bowl.
- Heat cream and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, watching over it so that it wouldn’t boil over. Turn off heat.
- Pour the hot cream into the chocolate bowl. Whisk the mixture until smooth and satiny. Leave to cool.
To make the fudge filling
- Place the chocolate in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- Whisk together the cream and the corn syrup. Place in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Pour over the chocolate and whisk until smooth and satiny. Leave to cool.
To assemble
- Once cooled, slip out one of the cakes from the pan and place it on your desired cake stand.
- Spread the cooled fudge filling on the cake in a thick layer.
- Place the other cake on this.
- Pour over the chocolate ganache from the top of the cake. Make sure you get the sides.
- Sprinkle chocolate curls along the base of the cake and on top. Sprinkle the gold and silver edible balls.
- Tuck right in!
Guessed the secret ingredients yet? It’s buttermilk and little granules of chopped up chocolate within the chocolate cake! An absolute no-no in fluffy light cake language but what the heck. Rules are made for breaking.
Bittersweet chocolate ganache coating a rich, moist cake sandwiching a thick fudge chocolate filling oozing from the corners of your mouth as you bite in. this is chocolate in its most luxurious form. All you get is chocolate, a mouth full of the lovely gooeyness encountering your palate in shades of bitter, sweet, creamy, mushy, crunchy and silky. It is simply intoxicating and yet, not too sweet so that you can enjoy the opulence of chocolate in its purest form. Death by chocolate indeed!
Oh and the bougainvilleas are from the garden. They have invaded the whole place and it is just magic!
Baking tips
- You can either bake the cake in a single pan, cut it in the middle or bake it separately like I did. Being the butterfingers of the family, I did not want to take the risk of cutting the cake in half for the fear of crumbling it beyond redemption. So I chose the easy way out!
If you want the cake slightly coffee-flavoured, substitute the cup of hot water with a cup of strong coffee.
Don’t have buttermilk? Don’t worry! Simply add 1 ½ tblsps of white wine vinegar to a cup of milk and let it stand for 5 minutes. You’ve got your cup of buttermilk! - To make the chocolate curls, simply scrape the sides of a piece of cooking chocolate with a knife while holding the chocolate and the knife tightly. the curls will form automatically.
