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- Apr 1, 2019
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Hi guys. 
It's been a few months since I last posted. I haven't baked anything much really, but over the last couple of days I put together a chocolate cake. Never made it before and I'm really pleased the way it turned out. It tastes lovely, very moist and light sponge too.
Not my recipe but I followed it to the letter, well, apart from forgetting to add half a teaspoon of salt to the sponge but it's not noticeable anyway. Here's the recipe for anyone interested.
https://joyofbaking.com/ChocolateGenoise.html
As per recipe, I brushed the sponges with a sugar syrup which adds to the moistness. But I baked on a lower heat than in the recipe; I baked at 160c and made up some DIY baking belts which kept the edges soft and reduced the tops from doming. This is something Norcalbaker59 had taught me a while back, particularly because of the type of tins I'm using. My tins are 8 inch. The recipe calls for 9 inch tins, but it doesn't seem to matter. Hi Norcalbaker if you're reading.
Other tweaks of mine: I preferred to whip up some double cream for the filling instead of making the chocolate mousse in the recipe. Also, I made up a very small amount of a simple chocolate buttercream recipe for piping the decoration using butter, cocoa powder, powdered sugar and milk.
Here's my buttercream recipe:
Cream 15g butter for a few minutes in a small bowl. Sift 8g cocoa powder and 32g powdered sugar and add to the butter along with a small amount of milk, about 6ml or so. Mix, then add another 32g powdered sugar along with a little more milk if it's too dry. Now it's ready for the piping bag.
And after making a dark chocolate chocolate ganache, I tasted some before covering the cake but wasn't keen on the stronger taste so threw it and decided to melt some Cadburys milk chocolate which is perfect for me, it's very smooth and creamy.
The key here is considerably volumizing the eggs and folding gently to reduce deflating it. I baked my sponges for about 25 minutes, since I was on a lower temperature than the recipe. I need to weigh my batter next time as they came out slightly different thicknesses, and one was slightly different diameter so I wasn't able to get both sponges and the cream filling completely flush. I dripped the chocolate glazing while the cake was on the serving plate and then wiped away most of the excess. Not ideal but I was worried about damaging the sponge or smudging the glaze by moving it from a wire rack.
I made up some cake flour too. I weighed out 125g plain flour, removed 2 levelled tablespoons of it and added 2 levelled tablespoons of cornflour. Then sifted it 5 times.
I love chocolate cake!
It's been a few months since I last posted. I haven't baked anything much really, but over the last couple of days I put together a chocolate cake. Never made it before and I'm really pleased the way it turned out. It tastes lovely, very moist and light sponge too.Not my recipe but I followed it to the letter, well, apart from forgetting to add half a teaspoon of salt to the sponge but it's not noticeable anyway. Here's the recipe for anyone interested.
https://joyofbaking.com/ChocolateGenoise.html
As per recipe, I brushed the sponges with a sugar syrup which adds to the moistness. But I baked on a lower heat than in the recipe; I baked at 160c and made up some DIY baking belts which kept the edges soft and reduced the tops from doming. This is something Norcalbaker59 had taught me a while back, particularly because of the type of tins I'm using. My tins are 8 inch. The recipe calls for 9 inch tins, but it doesn't seem to matter. Hi Norcalbaker if you're reading.
Other tweaks of mine: I preferred to whip up some double cream for the filling instead of making the chocolate mousse in the recipe. Also, I made up a very small amount of a simple chocolate buttercream recipe for piping the decoration using butter, cocoa powder, powdered sugar and milk.
Here's my buttercream recipe:
Cream 15g butter for a few minutes in a small bowl. Sift 8g cocoa powder and 32g powdered sugar and add to the butter along with a small amount of milk, about 6ml or so. Mix, then add another 32g powdered sugar along with a little more milk if it's too dry. Now it's ready for the piping bag.
And after making a dark chocolate chocolate ganache, I tasted some before covering the cake but wasn't keen on the stronger taste so threw it and decided to melt some Cadburys milk chocolate which is perfect for me, it's very smooth and creamy.
The key here is considerably volumizing the eggs and folding gently to reduce deflating it. I baked my sponges for about 25 minutes, since I was on a lower temperature than the recipe. I need to weigh my batter next time as they came out slightly different thicknesses, and one was slightly different diameter so I wasn't able to get both sponges and the cream filling completely flush. I dripped the chocolate glazing while the cake was on the serving plate and then wiped away most of the excess. Not ideal but I was worried about damaging the sponge or smudging the glaze by moving it from a wire rack.
I made up some cake flour too. I weighed out 125g plain flour, removed 2 levelled tablespoons of it and added 2 levelled tablespoons of cornflour. Then sifted it 5 times.
I love chocolate cake!
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