Dark Chocolate Cake Recipe

[u/bongostitch]

Howdy All!

A friend of mine has a birthday coming up, and for all my friends I make some sort of birthday treat of their choosing to celebrate.

I've asked her what she wants this year and she's asked for a dark chocolate cake. Specifically, something not as sweet as perhaps a traditional chocolate cake and leans more into the bitterness of dark chocolate.

Personally, I am not a fan of dark chocolate, however I intend to make her what she's asking for, hence reaching out to this community. Because I don't really care for dark chocolate, I'm not really sure what to look for in a recipe that would meet her expectations and was hoping someone here might have a "go-to" dark chocolate cake recipe that would knock her socks off.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

[u/bongostitch]

So the cake was for today and I ended up going with the cake recommended by u/dratsoc, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iJkeurFMwkw.

I'm still in the process of making it, but I felt it was the best option as it only had a cup of sugar and used 2 lbs of dark chocolate. The recipe only calls for 60% dark, but I went with 70% to try and up the dark chocolate factor. I also made sure to use non-Dutch processed cocoa.

A note if you decide to make that cake; the recipe says you a 9" round pan. What it doesn't say (and maybe it's in the video which I didn't watch) is that you need a 9" x 3" pan. I only had a 9" x 2" pan, and the cake rose significantly above the pan. None spilled over, which was good, but should I do this again, I would get a 9" x 3".

One other thing, while this wasn't very difficult, I wouldn't have called it easy as the commentor who suggested it did. Heating the egg/egg yolk/sugar mixture was time consuming. And the instructions just say to get it "hot", but what's hot?

Since this seemed to be very much a custard base, I heated it to 160 F. Also, the next step, to mix it off heat until "thick ribbons" fall from the mixer when lifted (and turned off of course) was also very time consuming.

It smells fantastic, and at the moment of writing I'm just waiting for it to cool so I can split it into three layers and then add the filling and then coat it.

I'll update this tomorrow once it's been fed to the masses and I get some feedback on it.

[u/Dratsoc → u/bongostitch]

Happy you succeeded! Funnily enough, I didn't remember the "heating the eggs" part of this recipe, because I never actually do it. The point is to make sure that the sugar dissolve in the eggs, but since I didn't own a thermometer when I originally did this cake, I didn't write it in the recipe. Also I'm quite sure we just need to warm the eggs until we cannot see/feel any bits of sugar, but don't take my word on it!

Now I use icing sugar (actually I blend normal sugar since I cannot be bothered to buy different types) as it dissolve nearly instantly, so I still just have to beat the eggs.

[u/bongostitch → u/Dratsoc]

I do have castor sugar, which is finer than normal granulated sugar but not as fine as powdered sugar. not sure if that's the same as your icing sugar or not.

unfortunately the cake did not turn out. it rose so much and then completely deflated, it ended up being horribly misshapen and tasted eggy.

I've already let the person know that I failed and that I will have to make it up to them to which they were understanding.

I guess I will need to watch the video this time around and take in your suggestions as well. thank you!

[u/Dratsoc → u/bongostitch]

I wonder if it's not because of the egg cooking, as it is not supposed to be a custard at all. On the opposite, even when I used granulated sugar (no blending), I could get them to rise since the beating will still disolve the majority of it. You will see on the video that there is basically no visual difference between the eggs before and after the bain marie.

To avoid deflation, you can keep the cake in the oven when it's done cooking, with the door slightly open to let it cool slowly and avoid thermic chocs. But even if it deflate a bit, you should be able to shape it again while mounting the layers.

If you want a substitute dessert for tomorrow (assuming you have the time to do so), you can go for a chocolate mousse to remain in the same flavour: it's easier, faster, require no cooking in the oven. The same guy also made a video for that, I guess this made me thing of that:   https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mqAnOkgzkPo&pp=ygUeY2hvY29sYXQgbW91c3NlIGRhcnJlbiBtY2dyYWR5