Devil’s dream chocolate cake

Recipe

This recipe is divided into 2 components :

Dark chocolate cake base

Dreamy Chocolate ganache

For Dark Chocolate cake base, you need :

• 2 cups of All purpose flour, sifted
• 1/2 tsp soda bi carb
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt . Salt helps in elevating the taste of the sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons cocoa powder (unsweetened)
• 1 cup brown sugar (Can substitute with white powdered sugar)
• 2 tsp espresso powder (can use instant coffee powder as well) . Coffee always enhances the flavour of chocolate. Recommended for recipes calling for milk chocolate. Don’t use when cooking with white chocolate
• 50 gms butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp pure vanilla essence
• 1 egg (optional)
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper (for the heat and the intense flavour to offset the sweetness and enhance the bitter sweet nature of chocolate). If sugar and spice do not mix with your taste buds, feel free to exclude this ingredient and continue with the rest of the recipe.

For Dreamy Chocolate ganache*, you need:

*Typically ganache needs whipping cream and chocolate but since i did not have any whipping cream, i used milk and butter to give the ganache volume, shine and form. This is a quick solution but worked fine with me and i made extra to store in a airtight container in the freezer. Does not freeze or get hard like rock. Stays good for upto 1 week in fridge and upto 1-2 months in freezer.

• 100 gms good quality semi-sweet chocolate (can also use chocolate chips but proper baking chocolate recommended)
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (unsweetened)
• 2 tablespoons butter (butter helps in giving the chocolate ganache that lustre and holds the form when spread on cake
• 1/2 cup sugar . Adjust as per taste (Prefer powdered sugar to mix easily)
• 1/2 cup milk (i prefer full fat/ 2% fat content)

Method

We would begin with baking the dark chocolate cake base.

1. Pre-heat your oven at 375F and keep ready to pop the cake in. Grease your baking tin with butter or line with a parchment paper and keep ready.
2. Meanwhile, take a mixing bowl and sift in the flour, baking powder, soda bi carb, salt, cayenne pepper and cocoa powder. Combine and keep aside.
3. In a separate mixing bowl, crack open an egg and whisk for a minute till the egg is homogenous. Add in the butter and sugar and whisk well till the sugar dissolves and the mixture starts to increase in volume. Add in the vanilla essence.You can do the same using a stand mixer at speed 2 for a couple of minutes. Keep aside.
4. Now, take the espresso powder and dilute in 1/3 quantity of milk and microwave for 30 seconds to combine.
5. Add the espresso mixture with the rest of the milk and let it cool down to room temperature*. Add to the egg mixture and combine gently.                                      *Be careful not to add hot milk to the egg mixture as yet, the egg tends to scramble and you don’t want an chocolate flavoured omlette for a cake. Don’t ask me how i know this 😛
6. Now, gently (1 tablespoon at a time), fold in the dry ingredients with the wet mixture and combine till it forms a cake batter. You need a pouring (but not runny )consistency batter. If you feel that the batter needs for liquid, feel free to add in a couple of more tablespoons of milk.
7. Place the baking tin in the middle rack of the oven and bake for about 30-40 minutes or till done. Depending on the size of the baking tin and the depth of the batter, the baking time varies, so use your best judgement. It is advisable to check the status every 7-10 minutes after the first 20 minutes of baking.
8. After the cake is done, remove from oven and remove from the baking tin. Place the cake on a cooling rack and let it cool down completely (took my cake about 1.5 hours)
9. Carefully slice up the cake into as many layers as you can handle. I could manage making 3 layers. Keep aside.

Now let’s get on with the oh-so-ever Dreamy Chocolate Ganache

1. Take chocolate in a mixing bowl. Now you can either microwave this for a quick 30 seconds to melt or go traditional with the double boiler method. I prefer the double boiler method for chocolate tempering but it takes good 5-7 minutes to melt the chocolate.
2. Once the chocolate has started to melt, add in the cocoa powder and butter and gently combine.
3. In a separate pan, heat up the milk and pour in the sugar and mix well till the sugar dissolves.
4. Now slowly add the sugared milk into the chocolate mix and combine so that the ganache is homogenous. Keep aside and let it cool down. The dreamy chocolate ganache is ready to get devoured 🙂

For Assembly,

Take a Flat plate. Arrange the lower most layer of the cake. Next, scoop out generous quantity of the chocolate ganache and using a spatula, spread evenly on the layer. Keep this in the freezer for 5 minutes (This would enable the ganache to firm up and hold the shape). Next place the next layer and continue with the ganache. Complete all the assembly and then keep the ganache in the freezer for about 10 minutes to slightly firm up before spreading on the outside surface of the cake. Keep the cake in the fridge when not consuming. The cake can be stored for upto a week (though i am 100% sure it would not last 2 days …. coz it is just so delicious !!)