Favourite chocolate cake

Everyone needs an infinitely adaptable chocolate cake for birthdays and other celebrations, and this is my favourite one by far. I've made it countless times and believe it to be completely idiot proof. Even when I've forgotten to put in the sugar and had to scrape it all out of the tray, mix it in and scrape the batter back in to the tray again, or when I was making it as a surprise for my housemate and ran out of time so had to ice it whilst still hot before she got home, or when I forgot to buy the buttermilk and had to go to the shops half way through making it this cake was just as delicious.

 

It's light in texture whilst also having a good chocolatey flavour and goes well with all kinds of icing, although the buttercream recipe below is the one I choose more often than not.

 

Following this are some of the different ways I have decorated this cake in the past, but please excuse the rather terrible photography, they were mostly taken out and about and under artificial lighting!

 

Things I have learnt from making this chocolate cake...

 

I tend to bake layer cakes like this in a large rectangular tray and then cut into the required shape, this means you don't have to have a million different sized cake tins and you also get to sample the left overs...just to make sure it tastes ok of course!

 

The ingredients include coffee, which you can't taste but somehow makes it taste more chocolatey and probably balances out the huge amount of sugar! If you really don't like coffee though, you could replace this with hot water.

 

If you're making a large cake you will notice that it requires slightly more than one pot of buttermilk, to avoid wasting the leftover buttermilk, I make up the 1½ cups asked for with a little ordinary milk. I've also replaced the buttermilk with low fat yoghurt and it had no discernible effect on the finished cake.

 

To prevent crumbs getting caught up in the icing as you're spreading it on, spread a thin messy layer of icing over the cake and then chill until this layer hardens, before icing again. This technique is called 'crumb-coating'. It gives the cake a neater finish and is very useful if you are going to ice it in a lighter colour than the cake itself.

 

If I'm making white or coloured icing I tend to use a simple mixture of mascapone, cream and icing sugar, as it compliments the richness of the cake and buttercream filling.

 

Crumb-coating: the best way to get an even iced finish on a cake

 

Chocolate cake:

(adapted from this Smitten Kitchen recipe)

Small Chocolate Cake	Medium Chocolate Cake	Large Chocolate cake
2x 18cm cake tins to make either a 2 or 4 layer cake	12x11 inch tray to make a four layer 15cm cake and a smaller four layer cake	11 x15 inch tray to make a six layer 15cm cake and a smaller four layer cake
28g dark chocolate 70%	55g dark chocolate 70%	85g dark chocolate 70%
½ cup hot coffee	1 cup hot coffee	1½ cups hot coffee
125g sugar	250g sugar	375g sugar
105g plain flour	210g plain flour	315g plain flour
60g cocoa	120g cocoa	180g cocoa
¼ tsp baking powder	½ tsp baking powder	¾ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda	1¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda	2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt	¾ tsp salt	1¼ tsp salt
1 large egg	2 large eggs	3 large eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil	½ cup vegetable oil	¾ cup vegetable oil
½ cup buttermilk	1 cup buttermilk	1½ cups buttermilk
¼ tsp vanilla extract	½ tsp vanilla extract	¾ tsp vanilla extract

• Pour the hot coffee over the chopped chocolate and leave to melt, stirring occasionally until cool
• Preheat the oven to 150°C and line your cake tins
• Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb, and salt into a bowl
• In a very large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs until they become frothy and a pale lemon in colour
• Add the vegetable oil, buttermilk, vanilla extract as well as the chocolate/coffee mixture, and whisk briefly to mix
• Add in the dry ingredients and beat until just combined
• Pour into the tins and bake for 45mins to 1hour, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean

Chocolate buttercream:

(adapted from this Smitten Kitchen recipe)

For Small Chocolate Cake	For Medium Chocolate Cake	For Large Chocolate cake
Makes 4 cups of buttercream	Makes 5 cups of buttercream	Makes 6 cups of buttercream
115g dark chocolate, melted	170g dark chocolate, melted	200g dark chocolate, melted
375g icing sugar	560g icing sugar	685g icing sugar
2 tbs cocoa	3 tbs cocoa	4 tbs cocoa
225g butter, softened	340g butter, softened	410g butter, softened
4 tbs milk or cream	6 tbs milk or cream	8 tbs milk or cream
¾ tsp vanilla extract	1 tsp vanilla extract	1¼ tsp vanilla extract

 

• Put all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until thoroughly combined
• If your food processor is too small for a large batch (as mine is) beat together butter and icing sugar before adding the melted chocolate, sifted cocoa, milk and vanilla
• Add more milk or cream if necessary to obtain a good spreading consistency

Marscapone icing:

For a large amount:

500ml mascapone

300ml extra thick double cream

60g icing sugar, sifted

• Whisk together all the ingredients until thickened but do not over-beat, it should be just holding it's shape
• Fold in a few drops of food colouring, if using

 

Black forest cake: filled with cherry jam and chocolate buttercream, coated with mascapone icing and piped chocolate trees




Sparkly stencil writing. Tip: Capital letters have less curves than lower case and are therefore 100 times easier to cut out with a craft knife! Use the non-toxic glitter you can get from cake decorating shops.





Digger cake for 2 year old nephew: Digger made of readly-to-roll fondant icing mixed with food colouring pastes and the gravel is made of roasted hazelnuts. Wrap fondant around cocktail sticks to support the arms of the digger.

Fondant baby booties (pattern and idea borrowed from Sprinkle Bakes)

Summery chocolate and rasberry cake: Fold fresh raspberries into the buttercream filling then top with fresh summer berries and bunting.


Simple chocolate truffle cake dusted with cocoa and gold sprinkles