Hello everyone! Today I wanted to write about this chocolate cake I made yesterday. Since it became a huge hit with my friends, I wanted to share it with you too! So that you can make this and enjoy it with your friends. It may look complicated, but believe me its a piece of cake.. uhh, literally too! 😛 So enjoy baking!
It took me around an hour and a half for the whole preparation and baking. I would recommend you to bake the cake a day before and then allow it to cool for a day before you go ahead with the frosting and layering. It is a layered cake, so you can do the layers in two ways:
1) Bake 2 cakes and then layer them on top of another or,
2) Bake one cake and then cut it in half (this is the tricky part) and then layer the 2 halves.
It depends on your mood, number of people and if you want a really good layer then I suggest you opt for number one.
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
For the cake:
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour ( 2 1/4 cups ~ 300gm)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 100gm butter, room temperature
- 50ml vegetable oil
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 4 large eggs – separate the yolks and the whites
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup coconut milk and 1/2 cup buttermilk
For the filling:
- 75g sugar ( or 6 Tbsp )
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 2 tbsp coconut milk
For the frosting:
- 3 tbsp coconut milk
- 1 chocolate bar
- I bought a ready made chocolate frosting from the shop. You can see it here:
Procedure:
- When you are baking, always preheat the oven. This is essential. I keep my oven temperature at 180 degrees. It depends on your oven type, how thick your baking tray is and also the type of cake you are baking. Experiment and find the best suited temperature for your oven.
- Now that is done, separate your eggs into yolks and whites.
- Beat the egg whites thoroughly with a hand mixer for around 2 minutes till you can see stiff foam on the top. When I say stiff, it is really a thick foam which does not dissolve easily.
- Mix together salt, baking powder, baking soda and flour in a bowl with a spatula.
- Take sugar, butter and oil in a big bowl and mix them with a hand mixer till they are light and fluffy.
- Add the egg yolks and vanilla essence to this and mix again for around 4 minutes. The mixture should be smooth and fluffy.
- Now comes the crucial part, you need to add flour, coconut milk and buttermilk alternatively to the mixture and each time mix well. This is done 3 times and it ends with the flour being the last addition. So, first add flour, mix well times with your hand and then beat with the hand mixer. Then add coconut milk and beat and then add the buttermilk and beat. So repeat this 3 times. And divide the ingredients accordingly.
- Now add a little bit of the egg whites and mix with the hand mixer. You can then add the rest of the egg whites and fold it in with a spatula. DO NOT USE THE HAND MIXER TO FOLD IN.
- Pour the batter into a baking tray lined with butter and a little bit of flour and bake it covered at 180 degrees. I usually cook my cakes covered with aluminium foil for the first half an hour because I find that it cooks evenly and does not fluff up too much in the middle. It took my oven around 1.25 hours to finish baking. It again depends on your oven and the cake density, so keep a check on it. And bake it till a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
- Turn off the oven and let the cake stand for 5 minutes inside the oven. You could then take it out and cool it on a wire rack. I wanted to use the cake for frosting immediately, so I just let it cool under a fan! But, its better that you let the cake cool down slowly.
- For the filling, mix all the ingredients together in a bowl with a hand mixer and spread it on the layer below (which maybe as I told before: lower half of the same cake or a separate cake) and place the upper half on top.
- For the frosting, first I grated the chocolate bar. Then I microwaved the ready made frosting for around 3 minutes and then added coconut milk and the left over filling mix. Spread the frosting on the cake and sprinkled with the grated chocolate bar.
Here’s a pic of the beautiful cake
Akshayapatre 