Chocolate Confessions
For someone who proclaims that they aren’t a chocaholic, I sure seem to post a lot of chocolate recipes! Am I just in denial? Perhaps somewhere under this hardened exterior lies a sweet, gooey, intense rush of chocolate love?
Maybe I should just take a deep breath, step forward and admit it – my name is Ellie, and I’m a chocaholic.
To be honest, I’m not the world’s biggest chocaholic. I don’t find myself constantly craving it’s cocoa kiss, nor am I driven to seek it out very often. However, when there’s a freshly baked chocolate cake (or a beautiful chocolate truffle) in my vicinity, the smell enters my nose and my eyes roll back into my head with pleasure as my senses are awakened.
Anyone who knows what I’m talking about understands what I mean when I say that chocolate is a beautiful thing.
This being my very last week at my workplace (and Friday being my last day ever), I decided to treat my coworkers by making them this very special chocolate cake. I’ve made this cake for many special occasions before, so I thought it only appropriate for this to be my farewell cake, a nice way to go out with a bang and leave my friends and fans with a final touch of sweetness from me to them 
Though it is super impressive, the beauty of this cake is that it is utterly foolproof and easy enough for even the most inexperienced baker to make. Moist, fluffy, rich, and intensely chocolatey – despite all the other chocolate cake recipes there are in the world (and we know that there are as many of those as grains of sand on a beach!) I know that I need no other than this to last me the rest of my days…
Chocolate Mud Cake
Ingredients
Cake
200g butter, chopped
200g good quality dark cooking chocolate, chopped
30g cocoa powder, sifted
2 tbsp instant coffee powder
60ml (1/4) cup water
1 tsp vanilla essence
220g caster sugar
3 eggs (room temperature)
115g self-raising flour, sifted
Ganache
150g good quality dark cooking chocolate, roughly chopped
125ml (1/2 cup) thin cream
1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C, then line a cake tin with baking paper (this cake is fragile and moist so you’ll need the paper to be able to remove it from the tin – greasing the cake tin is not enough).
2. Combine butter, chocolate, cocoa, coffee powder, water & vanilla essence in a medium saucepan. Whisk over low heat till smooth & well combined. Set aside mixture till it is lukewarm.
3. Beat sugar & egg together till pale and creamy. Slowly add the lukewarm chocolate mix whilst continually beating with an electric hand whisk, then add the flour and beat till combined and the mixture is light and fluffy.
4. Pour mix into prepared cake tin and bake for 55 mins, or till a skewer inserted into the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it.
5. Set cake out to cool in tin for 15, then remove from cake tin and turn on a wire rack to cool completely.
6. To make ganache, combine chocolate and cream in heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (water should not touch bottom of bowl). Stir occasionally, till mixture is melted and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside for around an hour, stirring occasionally till it has cooled and thickened to a spreadable consistency.
7. Spread ganache over cooled cake. Set aside for 30 mins or till ganache is firm, then serve!
This cake is one that tastes better if slightly aged, so if you are planning ahead then try and make it around 2-3 days before you intend to serve it. You can leave the iced cake in the fridge for up to a week, and just remove it about an hour before you serve it to soften the cake and ganache and bring them to room temperature.
[tags]baking, chocolate, cakes, recipes, dessert, sweets[/tags]
Others who have tried this recipe:
- Katie from Apple & Spice
- Thanh from I Eat Therefore I Am
- Rilsta from My Food Trail
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awesome (:
Thank you for sharing… I was just wondering.. do you think this cake will work with rolled fondant?
@toskaniau – It is very yummy
@lynn – Thanks
@GSweetDesigns – To be honest, I don’t know…it’s a dense cake which would hold the fondant okay, but it’s actually quite fragile once you start cutting into it and tends to fall apart a bit which might not be so good.
I attempted this cake with high expectations. I have a fan-assisted oven so I cut the baking time down to 40 minutes. When I checked the cake at 40 mins it was already overcooked!
Also, I don’t really like the coffee taste of it. I thought it overpowered the chocolate. I would omit that next time.
Lysa – if you stray from the instructions in a recipe, then you really need to be more sure of what you’re doing. I do not use a fan-forced oven and prefer not to used a fan-forced setting when baking sweets because it does speed up the baking time and the amount that it cuts it short by varies so greatly depending on recipe and oven.
I’m sorry you didn’t like the coffee taste but that really is purely a subjective thing, isn’t it? I personally don’t drink coffee and can barely pick it up, and this cake has gotten rave reviews from every single person that I’ve baked it for over the past 8 years.
hi(: may i know what’s the size of the baking tin that you’re using? how many inch in diameter?
You have an awesome blog here and I think the way you take step by step photos of your recipes is great!
I had a go at making your chocolate cake recipe and it is DELICIOUS! You can read about it on my blog – thanks for sharing!
Vivoo: I used a 22cm baking tin and the cake was just right.
The name chocolate will trigger salivary secretion in kids but the pictures displayed here will arrest not only the kids but adults too. A gourmet’s delicacy
@vivoo – I use a 20cm baking dish
Rilsta – Thanks sweetie
I’ll definitely check it out!
Dairyman – aww, thanks for such a lovely comment
I came here looking for a victoria sponge (plain vanilla) recipe for a cake baking competition this weekend when I saw this. I have to try it so will be entering the chocolate cake class in stead.
I have faith in your recipe although not in my baking ability so fingers crossed … will let you know how I get on
Ellie, you ROCK!
This is now officially a prize winning recipe … thanks so much for all your help, I got 3rd prize at the Bishop Wilton show … this despite all my ganache disasters AND the fact that the cakes were supposed to be un-iced. I pointed out that it was ganache not icing
Melanie – I’m so glad that this worked out well for you! It’s awesome that you won 3rd prize at the Wilton show, nice work!