The Ultimate Chocolate Cake

This is A’s xx birthday cake, and it’s truly THE ultimate chocolate cake. It consists of a dense three layer chocolate cake, sandwiched together with dark chocolate ganache. It’s the most chocolaty chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted.  The cake is dark, chocolatey, incredibly rich and dense. It is not for the faint hearted! In fact, M. said that we have hidden a mini chocolate factory in each slice… she wasn’t wrong there.

It was so damn chocolaty, it nearly made us sick. Ok, it didn’t help that we had 1/8 th each. As we were eating the cake, we thought it was so rich, and so I checked the recipe to see how many it served. It should have served 14, not 8, no wonder it nearly made us sick! It is good in thin slices, but I think the initial slice put A off, so he didn’t eat much more of it. I made him a second, lighter, lemon mousse cake, which was awesome.

THE ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE CAKE

Adapted from BBC Good Food – Ultimate Chocolate Cake

Makes one 20 cm (8 inch) round cake, serves 14+

Ingredients

for the cake

• 200 g (7 oz) good quality dark chocolate (at least 70 % cocoa solids), broken into chunks
• 200 g (3/4 c and 2 tablespoons) salted butter
• 120 ml (1/2 c) water
• 170 g plain (all purpose) flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 200 g (3/4 c and 2 1/2 tablespoons) light muscuvado (light brown) sugar
• 25 g (1/4 c) unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs
• 60 ml (1/4 c) milk, mixed with 1 tablespoon lemon juice, let sit for 5 minutes

for the ganache

• 200 g (7 oz) good quality dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)
• 285 ml (1 cup and 3 tablespoons) double (heavy whipping) cream
• 2 tablespoons raw cane (turbinado) sugar

to decorate

• chocolate curls

Method

1. Line the base and sides of one 20 cm (8 inch) round spring-form cake tin with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 160 C (320 F).

2. To make the cake, heat together the chocolate, butter and water in a saucepan until everything is just melted, do not overheat. Alternatively, the mixture can be heated in a bowl in a microwave.

3. In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), light muscovcado (light brown) sugar,  and cocoa powder, mixing well with your hands to remove any lumps.

4. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs and milk/lemon juice mixture.

5. Pour the melted chocolate mixture and egg mixture into the flour mixture until evenly blended.  Pour into the prepared cake tin.

6. Bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour and 25-30 minutes. The cake is done when a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin, and parchment. Let cool on a wire rack.

7. Once cool, cut the cake horizontally to make three evenly sized layers.

8. To make the ganache, place the chocolate into a bowl. Heat the cream and sugar in a pan until just about boiling. Pour the heated cream into the chocolate and stir until the mixture is smooth.

9. Sandwich the cake layers with the a little of the ganache. Pour the rest of the ganache over the cake, spreading it with a palette knife to cove the entire cake. Decorate with chocolate curls.

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