The Ultimate Chocolate Cake Recipe

I make a lot of cakes, and I have been known (shock-horror) to use a packet mix when pushed for time or truly desperate. This is almost always a mistake. This is particularly inadvisable when one is making character cakes or tiered cakes as they are far too soft and far too prone to excessive crumbing. Attempting a crumb coat on a packet cake is a quick route to throwing oneself out the window. If you want evidence for why a packet cake will not work for a character cake - please check out the Thomas the Tank Engine cake that I attempted for my daughter's fourth birthday party and then let us never speak of it (or its saggy caboose) again.

This year I attempted my first-ever two-tiered cake and I used this recipe for the mix. I will never use anything else in future. The incredible thing about this recipe is that it is perfect for a cake that will take several days to finish - if you ate it the first day you would find it light and moist, but over a few days it becomes denser and more muddy. Add a luxuriant ganache and you have the makings of a truly memorable cake. 

The recipe below makes about a 20cm (8") cake - which should serve 12 (depending on how much cake you like to eat in one sitting).

For my animal cake seen above, I made two lots of this mix in two 8" tins for the base tier (torted together with ganache) and then one lot of the mix for a 6" tin (cut into three layers and torted). 

Grease and line your cake tin - do not omit this step or you will never get the cake out again once it is baked. 

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees Celcius (or 325 F)

Ingredients

250g butter, chopped
1 1/2 cup (375ml) water
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1/3 cup (35g) cocoa powder
2/3 cup (100g) dark chocolate (I use 70% cocoa and Lindt conveniently comes in 100g packs

1 2/3 cups (250g) plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon bi-carbonate of soda (bi-carb soda)

Method

1. Combine the butter, water, sugar, cocoa powder and chocolate together in a medium sized saucepan.
2. Place over gentle heat. Bring to the boil whilst stirring. You need to stir until everything has dissolved to stop the mix from burning. Be careful that the mix does not boil over.
3. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.
4. Remove from the heat. Cover with a lid and leave to cool to room temperature.
5. Whisk in gently the flour and bi-carb soda into the cooled liquid. Whisk until all lumps are removed. Do not over whisk; you are not trying to add air into the batter just remove any flour lumps.
6. Pour batter into the prepared baking pan. Remember the baking pan must be lined with non-stick baking paper. The batter will be quite liquid and will level naturally. Tap the tin on the kitchen bench three times to remove any large air bubbles.
7. Bake in a preheated oven set at 160oC (325oF) for 80 mins. The top of the cake will crack. Don't worry, the cracks will settle and be hidden when you turn the cake out of the tin.
8. Remove from the oven. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 mins. Gently turn out onto a cake plate or a cake board lined with non stick baking paper and leave to cool. Do not use a wire rack as this cake is too soft to survive the experience. 

Ganache

For the cake above, I used a white chocolate ganache as I like to offset the richness of the dark chocolate with, um, some serious sweetness. 

There are a gazillion how-to's on the web for ganache but for this one I used, wait for it, 2.4 kg of white chocolate to 800ml of pure cream (a 3:1 ratio). 

To help with the exorbitant cost for this large amount of chocolate, I used Aldi chocolate and, amazingly, it made the perfect ganache with no dramas whatsoever. It still cost me $30 though. Sigh.

I whizzed the chocolate in my food processor until it was like coffee grounds and placed it in a stock pot (even my Kenwood bowl was too small for this much chocolate). 

In a separate saucepan I heated the cream until it was just about to boil and then I poured it over the grated chocolate. I gave it a minute to work its magic and then I stirred with a wooden spoon until lovely and glossy and smooth. 

I then put it somewhere in my kitchen where neither children nor dogs could raid it and left it for 24 hours. After that time, it had hardened somewhat so I simply worked it with a wooden spoon until it was light and usable again. I tried nuking it for a brief spell but this merely curdled it - attempt at your peril. 

For tips on how to get your fondant to have lovely straight edges using ganache, I highly recommend the YouTube vids from Inspired by Michelle.