Chocolate Overload Cake

I have always been on a hunt for the best cake recipes. In fact, I've already collected a lot, but I seldom got the chance to try them. Since Nikki is still waiting for her culinary school year to begin, she would often try at once every recipe she finds. She'd try them all until she gets the perfect one, which suits her taste. As for me, I just wait for the weekend or a free weekday so that I could cook, bake, and try the recipes which I've found myself.

Last week, I found a really cool chocolate cake recipe from Chef Garvin. It seemed easy and I have the ingredients at home except for the buttermilk and confectioner's sugar (screw you, Rustan's for running out of stock!). Since I have been wanting to bake the perfect chocolate cake, I decided to try it this afternoon.

Everything went well, except for the "cooling" part. It would have come out nice had Nikki followed what I told her to do. Cakes must be allowed to cool first before turning it upside down. My very obedient sister (I am being sarcastic here) told me to turn it upside down already because that's what she does when she bakes. When we were about to remove the cake from the pan, we found it deformed. I was supposed to frost it already, but when I saw how pitiful it looked like, I lost interest and decided not to push through with the frosting.

Mama was too persistent. She immediately fixed the cake and trimmed the upper part. I checked it again and saw that it's already ok. I immediately made the chocolate frosting and finished it. Luckily, the output wasn't bad after all, appearance-wise.

I tried modifying the chocolate recipes I got. I added, removed, and modified some ingredients. Since we did not have buttermilk, I made it myself. I combined a cup of whole milk and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. As for the sugar, I used caster instead. I achieved the same sweetness, only that caster gave more texture to the frosting. As a topping, I made use of the white chocolate bar I bought the other day. I put chocolate shavings on top of the cake, as well as on its sides. In making the cake, I used imported cocoa powder to achieve a dark, moist chocolate cake.

Nikki named the cake Chocolate Overload Cake because everything about the cake is chocolate-y. The cake itself is chocolate, as well as its frosting and garnishing.

Chocolate Overload Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
• ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 Teaspoon Baking soda
• ½ Teaspoon Salt
• 8 Tablespoons softened butter (1 stick)
• ¾ cup light brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk

Directions:

• Preheat the oven 350F.
• Lightly butter and flour two 8-inch round cake pans, tapping out the excess flour.
• Sift the flour, Cocoa, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
• In a large bowl, using an electric mixer at high speed beat the butter until creamy about 1 minute.
• Add the brown and granulated sugars and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
• One at a time beat in the eggs, then the vanilla.
• Reduce the mixer speed to low.8. In three additions, beat in the flour/cocoa mixture, alternating with the buttermilk, scraping the bowl often with a rubber spatula until the batter is smooth.
• Spread evenly in the prepared pans.
• Bake until the tops spring back then lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
• Cool for 10 Minutes on wire cake racks.
• Invert the cakes and un-mold onto the racks.
• Turn right side up and cool completely.

Frosting:

• 1 stick butter
• 2 cups caster sugar
• 6 tbsps cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

• Sift together caster and cocoa powder.
• Cream butter until smooth, then beat in sugar mixture alternately with evaporated milk. Blend in vanilla extract.

Garnishing:

• White chocolate shavings

My cake in its chocolate-y glory.

Excuse the plate. We put the cake on it when we store it inside the fridge.

White chocolate shavings

Look how dark the cake is. Using a good brand of cocoa powder plus a proportionate amount of it resulted to the dark and moist texture. The dots are Nikki's pathetic attempt to garnish.

KEI