Now if I said this was the best chocolate cake of all time, would you believe me? Well you should because I have honestly never tasted anything better. It has such a soft melt in the mouth texture that knives literally glide through it, plus a deliciously rich chocolate flavour making it certainly one of the best cakes of all time! A combination of my basic cake recipe, my favourite brownie recipe and with all the ingredients required to make the sort of moist light chocolate cake we all love! To be honest I think this cake has it all, it is rich and moist but also light and airy, but try it for yourself. For recipe see bottom of page.
I have certainly struggled with chocolate cakes in the past with them often coming out dryer than I would like, but I can guarantee this cake will never come dry! I recently discovered the hot water chocolate cake, but I found they never came out well until this recipe as they often came out incredibly dense and heavy. My main advice would be avoid the fridge! I don't know what it is about cooling a cake down but very often it changes the texture making it taste more rubbery? (I don't know how to describe it, but if you've ever eaten a cake from the fridge you'll know what I mean!) especially with a denser sponge like this it means it looses its fall apart in the mouth lightness and becomes significantly heavier. Obviously if it is so warm that the icing will melt do store it in the fridge, but I would say the result is definitely better if you can avoid it!
For the instant coffee I used the Nescafe Azera Espresso. Obviously this is quite a strong coffee powder so just add enough powder to make a strong coffee using whatever instant coffee you can find. I'm sure you could also use fresh coffee as long as its plenty strong enough! Though make sure you add the coffee, it enhance the chocolate flavour making it 10 times richer and deeper.
Also as I used natural yoghurt as a substitute for buttermilk (which just never gets eaten up in my house), I'm sure it could easily be substituted either for buttermilk or other buttermilk substitutes (though I haven't tried it).
To ensure a rich chocolaty flavour I recommend using dark chocolate with more than 70% cocoa solids. Generally I try to make my recipes as affordable as possible, I have tried making this one with cheaper dark chocolate (these generally have lower percentages of cocoa solids as the cocoa solids are generally the expensive part of chocolate) but I can definitely confirm it gives a much richer flavour to use a better quality dark chocolate.
Now this is an easy cake to over mix, so I would suggest mixing it by hand. I used a balloon whisk and it was perfect for combining it quickly, although I'm sure a spatula or wooden spoon would work equally well it just may take a little longer to combine. If overmixed this will develop the gluten in the flour (this is the protein in flour), resulting in a chewy close textured cake unlike the soft light fall-apart texture we are aiming for.
The thing I would say that is particularly amazing about this cake is the amount of ways you can adapt it. So far I have made a choc-chip cookie version (with cookie dough butter cream and a layer of cookie in the middle) and a Malteser version (with crushed Maltesers in the middle and decorated with Maltesers). For the cake pictured above I filled the middle with crushed Maltesers and chopped up fudge and decorated with whole and crush Maltesers and fudge.
To be honest I can see endless possibilities of how to adapt this recipe and would love to see recommendations of what you want me to make with this chocolate cake or adaptions you've made at home. Also if you would like the recipes for either of these cakes please let me know and I can add them to my blog. Lets just say this definitely won't be the last time you see this recipe!
Choc Chip Cookie Fudge Cake: chocolate fudge cake with a layer of broken up homemade cookies surrounded by cookie dough butter cream in the middle. Fully iced in cookie dough butter cream with dark chocolate ganache dribbled over the top and homemade cookies to decorate.
Malteser Chocolate Cake: two layers of chocolate fudge cake, filled with crumbled Maltesers and my delicious chocolate buttercream. Topped with chocolate buttercream and Maltesers.
For future adaptions I have a black forest gateau cake in mind as well as a chocolate orange cake, an Oreo cake and an After Eight cake. If you would like the recipes for any of these adaptions please let me know in the comments below, I would also love to know about any adaptions you choose make. I am also able to answer any questions in the comments.
Credits to @riminyphotography on Instagram for the choc chip fudge cake picture and some of the fudge cake pictures (the best ones), I strongly suggest you check her account out as there are more amazing pictures on there (if the one above wasn't enough to convince you already!).
Recipe
Ingredients:
Cake:
175g Self-Raising Flour
50g Cocoa Powder
1½tsp Baking Powder
½tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
112g Dark Brown Sugar
112g Caster Sugar
225g Dark Chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)
225g Butter
100ml Natural Yogurt
4 Eggs
1½tsp Strong Coffee Powder
1tbsp Milk
Decoration:
150g Butter
300g Icing Sugar
100g Carnation Extra Thick Cream
25g Cocoa Powder
Chocolate and Fudge to decorate
Instructions:
Cake:
Set the oven to 150°C, line two deep 20cm sandwich tins with greaseproof paper.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, bicarb and baking powder into a large bowl. Mix together with the sugars until well combined.
Melt together the butter and chocolate over a saucepan of boiling water until smooth, leave to cool.
Mix the coffee powder with 100ml boiling water in a jug, set aside.
Mix together the yogurt, milk and eggs in a separate jug, set aside.
Add the melted chocolate mix to the dry mix, mix by hand till combined.
Add the egg mix and coffee and mix till combined.
Split the mixture evenly between the two tins and tap on the surface to knock out air bubbles.
Cook the cakes for 30-35mins till they spring back to the touch, get out and leave to cool in the tins.
Decoration:
Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and add the butter.
Whip the Carnation cream till no longer separated, measure out 100g then combine with the cocoa powder (make sure it is completely smooth).
Gradually mix together the icing sugar and butter adding the cocoa Carnation mixture a spoon at a time.
Place the first layer top down on your stand and cover with a generous layer of the buttercream (feel free to add extra fillings here!),
Then place the second layer on top (top face up) and cover with the remainder of the buttercream and decorate.
Enjoy!
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