Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Rich Moist Chocolate Cake

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know I said on my Facebook page that I was going to share a cookie recipe next, but I loved this cake so much, I just had to share! I hope you love it too! The cookie recipe is coming up soon too! :)

Today, we celebrate 9 years of marriage. What a roller coaster ride it has been! :) And the best part of the 9 years? Our little girls, of course! I wanted to make a chocolate cake for my husband because that is his favorite kind of cake.
Usually, I keep my pantry well stocked with baking essentials. Mainly because you don't know when a baking urge is going to hit! Today, I was just a little low on almost everything - surprisingly even on basics like flour and sugar - I blame it on the sleep deprivation! When baby has a cold, no one sleeps. Sigh!

When you're baking at 5:30 AM while the kids are still asleep and the husbands still at work, you can't really hop down to the neighborhood store. After a little middle of the night googling, I found a recipe for which I was certain I could (almost) scrape up the ingredients for. Joy the Baker to the rescue!
The recipe sounded perfect and I would have made it exactly as she wrote it, if I wasn't running short on flour and sugar. I made minor substitutions. I was short of about 1/4 cup flour and used a mix of whole wheat flour and corn starch to make up the difference. I am going to say that cake flour would work well here. The recipe called for 3/4 cup of white sugar, but I could only manage 1/2. So I used 1/4 cup of light brown sugar. Apart from that I followed the recipe as she wrote it. 

Rich, Moist Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Joy the Baker
Ingredients 

1 cup freshly made strong black coffee
3/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted 
1 tsp vanilla extract 
1/2 cup milk 
2 cups cake flour 
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature 
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar 
4 eggs 

Method
1. Mix together the cocoa and the coffee until smooth. Stir in the milk and vanilla and set aside. 
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. 
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter with the sugars until light and fluffy. 
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating in each egg until completely incorporated. 
5. Alternating between the flour mixture and the cocoa slurry, add the remaining ingredients to the bowl. Make sure you start and finish with the flour mixture. The mixture may look a little curdled, but that's fine. 
6. Divide the mixture between two greased and floured 8-inch/ 9-inch round cake tins and bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius/350 Fahrenheit. I used 8 inch rounds and got a pretty tall cake. 
7. Bake until the a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean and the cake begins to come away from the sides of the tin. This took about 30 minutes in my oven. 
8. Allow the cakes to cool in the tins, remove from the tins and frost with your favorite chocolate buttercream or with a chocolate ganache like I have. 
I loved the flavor and texture of this cake. It had a rich, complex flavor due to the brown sugar-coffee-cocoa combination. Divine! The cake was perfectly moist and dense - exactly how a good chocolate cake should be. And I just LOVED how beautifully this cake sliced up. Gorgeous, neat slices! Don't you hate when your moist cakes sometimes don't yield clean slices?
I blame my silliness for the uneven layers. I measured them out and they came out of the oven perfectly even! And then when I took them out of their tins and left them to cool on the rack, I put one of them (the lower layer) upside down. That flattened out the layer of course. And the top layer retained the height. I know this happens, but I was negligent this time. Next time, they're both cooling in the same direction!

Uneven layers or not, this cake did not disappoint at all!! Everyone here loved this cake and I am sure you will too! You must try it!

I'll be back in a few days with the cookie recipe! Until then... xoxox
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25 comments:

AnnaPetralia said...

This is great recipe and we are glad you shared it with us! Hope your summer was good and keep those recipes coming!
Warmly, Anna and Liz / www.2sistersrecipes.com

Mary said...

Oh this looks SOOOOOOOOOO good = congrats on your Anniversary!!

Gitu said...

OMGGGGG!! WANTT!!!!

Tripti Jacob said...

Looks yum. Can't wait to try it.

theharriedcook said...

Thank you! <3 I hope you try it out! :) Thanks for stopping by!

theharriedcook said...

Thank you :) We had a wonderful day! And my husband loved the cake :) thanks for stopping by!

theharriedcook said...

Sure! If there's any left when you visit next, it's all yours! Thanks for the comment!

theharriedcook said...

I hope you do, Tripti! And please don't forget to let me know how it turns out :) Cheers!

Anju Sabu said...

I can comment because I tried out this recipe today and it was awesome! Thanks for the great step-by-step instructions - even I couldn't mess it up :D

theharriedcook said...

So glad you tried it and liked it!!! And thank you so much for stopping by to let me know! :) you rock!

Judith said...

Hi, can I refrigerate this cake overnight ? Prior to frosting and filling ?

theharriedcook said...

Absolutely, Judith! You can wrap it in clingfilm and refrigerate for a couple of days. I also find it easier to handle to cakes and frost them when they're cold. The original recipe even mentions that you can freeze them for up to a week... I haven't tested that though. Thanks for stopping by!

theharriedcook said...

Great! I will check those out too :) my husband would go ga-ga over those! :)

Kim | a little lunch said...

Congratulations on your 9th wedding anniversary! (And no need to apologize for making chocolate cake instead of cookies -- gives us something to look forward to -- this one is a "beaut!") I totally identify with that "Oh! I didn't realize I was almost out of flour/sugar" feeling (and I don't have lil' ones around, ha!) -- looks like your substitutions worked out wonderfully. Many more happy years to you & your hubby!

Judith said...

Marsha,


This cake was yumm!!! it was a hit with everyone (including a "non-choc fan"). I filled with ganache and frosted with BC. Thanks for sharing.

theharriedcook said...

Thank you so much for your sweet comment, Kim! You always make me feel so special! Yeah the running out of ingredients thing happens to me more often than I would care to admit :) I'm glad it worked out too! :) thanks for your wishes :) hugs!

theharriedcook said...

Yay! Thank you for sharing this with me, Judith!! I am so glad it turned out well! The picture is gorgeous too :) I would like to share it on Facebook - if that's okay with you!! Let me know :)

Kim | a little lunch said...

You're so welcome and I didn't realize how "out of things" I was! Finally picked up flour, sugar, and other "basics" today. Let the baking begin! (As soon as the temp gets below 90 outside...) I'm soooo looking forward to autumn and you have all kinds of recipes to look forward to trying!

theharriedcook said...

Cant wait to see what you throw together :) hugs!

Jenny Strasek said...

Hi I tried this recipe on Tuesday and I just wanted to tell you that we loved it a lot! It was wonderful soft moist and chocolateee. We like dense chocolate cake and not the spongy type. This was the best! Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe with us. I used your chocolate ganache recipe from the cupcake post too. It was perfect with this cake. Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuu ;-)

Judith said...

:) plz go ahead, if u think its gna make more ppl want to bake then sure do.

Judith said...

Hi marsha,

If I use a 5inch round pan using the same amount of ingridients how many layers will it yield??

Chandni Punjabi said...

can we bake it in the micro?

theharriedcook said...

Hi sorry I missed this comment. I hope you were able to work it out. Cheers!

theharriedcook said...

This is a recipe meant for an oven. I have never tried it in a microwave. If you want to try it, you can, but I don't know how it will turn out. If you do make it, let me know how it is. Thanks for your comment.

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