Someone recently asked me if I was ever gonna go back to making regular desserts.
I don’t truly know what this meant but I decided to listen. I’m just gonna assume that they were asking me to make a more simple dessert…..so I made a chocolate cake, I feel like it doesn’t get any more regular than chocolate cake.
The ganache:
So instead of using a buttercream, I used a whipped dark chocolate ganache. I feel like ganache tastes better with chocolate cake.
You wanna make this ganache before you make the actual cake because it needs a few hours to set. Personally, I just prefer to make it the night before.
But a few hours at room temperature is good enough. However, if you want to speed up the process you can leave it to set in the fridge. I don’t like doing this though, you get a smoother ganache if you leave it to set at room temperature.
Also side note, if you want to use milk chocolate instead, double the amount of chocolate!
Video Tutorial
Substitutions
Two ingredients in this recipe that I know I might get questions about is the coffee and the plain yoghurt.
When coffee is added to chocolate cakes, it just intensifies the chocolate flavour, it won’t make the cake taste like coffee.
If you do want to leave it out you can. Still add the hot water though, just don’t mix coffee into it.
For the yoghurt, I add this because it makes the cake a lot more moist and softer. I recommend not substituting this but if you really wanted to you could replace it with equal amounts of sour cream or buttermilk or even just regular milk. But again, plain yoghurt works best!
Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- For the ganache:
200g dark chocolate
200ml double cream
25g unsalted butter
- For the cake:
50g cocoa powder
100ml hot water mixed with 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee
100ml vegetable oil
100g plain yoghurt
3 eggs
175g self-raising flour
125g granulated sugar
125g brown sugar
Directions
- To make the ganache:
- Add the chocolate, cream and butter into a bowl and heat this in the microwave for 30 seconds. Take this out, stir it, then heat it for another 30 seconds. Keep repeating this until all the chocolate has melted and you get a smooth mixture.
- Cover this and leave it at room temperature for a few hours to set. It is set when the mixture has become quite firm.
- To make the cake:
- Start by pre-heating your oven to 170c/325f. Also grease and line 2 six inch cake tins.
- In a bowl or jug, whisk together the cocoa powder, the water mixed with coffee, and the oil together. Then whisk in the yoghurt and the eggs.
- In a separate bow, mix together the flour and both sugars. Pour the wet ingredients into this and whisk until you get a smooth batter. Try not to over mix this, stop mixing as soon as you see no more lumps in the batter.
- Pour this batter into your cake tins and bake for around 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of them comes out clean.
- Once they have been baked, leave them to cool completely.
- Assembling the cake:
- Once the ganache has set, whip it using an electric mixer. You can also just whisk it by hand but if you do have an electric mixer I recommend using it.
- Just whip it until it lightens in colour and increases in volume slightly. At this point, you should have a spreadable but firm mixture. If it seems like it's too soft, leave this in the fridge for a bit. Or if it feels too firm to spread, put it in the microwave for just a few seconds.
- Once the cakes have completely cooled, take them out of the tins. I also cut the top of them off, just so I have flat layers but you don't have too.
- Spread some of the ganache on top of one layer of cake, add the other layer of cake on top of this, then spread some more ganache on top.
- And that's it, cut into it and enjoy!
Notes
- If you would like to use plain/all purpose flour for this instead, just use the same amount but add 2 and 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder to it!
hiii Ash
I would like to know if you can substitute the brown sugar for white sugar?
yesss you can, any sugar works as long as you use a total of 250g!
Hi Ash! I was wondering what would be the best method to store this cake?
It can just stay covered at room temperature for about 2 days. If you’re keeping it longer than this then leave it in the fridge!!