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| Decadently rich chocolate cake, full of cocoa, with a ganache (chocolate and cream) icing/frosting |
Darkly decadent and rich, best served cold, and accompanied by whipped cream or velvety vanilla ice-cream, this chocolate cake particularly appeals to men. Almost as a counter-point, it does not get such rave reviews from women; a statement borne out by the fact that I entered it once into a competition, and the judges found themselves tied in terms of texture, etc., between this cake and another which had as filling sweet raspberry jam and cream. It went to the vote: and you could almost hear the stampede in your head as the all-female audience overwhelmingly preferred "the other" cake.
Sweetness is in fact a strong differentiator between men and women, particularly so in the instance of young adult women who have just attained the right to drink alcohol (or not, as the case may be). The phenomenal rise of the alcopops, or alcoholic beverages in the guise of sweet drinks and marketed as a soft alternative, whereas in fact they often boast a stronger alcohol content than beer, is attributed to the fact that scientists discovered that young women in this age-group, pivotal to marketers in terms of adoption of drinking habits, are, thanks to high estrogen levels, strongly attracted to sweetness in everything. Once they created a product specifically geared to this group distinguished in terms of their age and gender, sales exploded and young women went from those who typically eschewed alcohol to a distinct sub-group of alcohol drinkers.
As any marketer knows, understanding your consumers is vital. Next time I enter a cake into a competition, I'll take into account the composition of my audience. However, for the man in your life, this cake will almost indubitably hit the spot, so what are you waiting for?
Well, there is one thing you may want to take into account: the expense is not inconsequential, given its reliance on top quality chocolate and cocoa, fresh cream, butter, eggs, castor sugar ... However, my husband thinks he's worth it.
It is important to remember that while cooking is an art, baking is definitely a science. Don't even think of attempting any baking without proper measuring cups and spoons. My grandmother who was of good Scottish extraction and a superb baker and winner of numerous Women's Institute awards taught me always to overfill a measuring cup or spoon and then level it with a knife to ensure an accurate measurement. An oven thermometer is highly recommended since invariably oven thermometres themselves tend to be not entirely accurate.
That said, I taught my American neighbour in Saudi Arabia how to make this particular cake, since her husband loved it so much, and though she did rather query everything, given that she had only ever dealt with box cakes previously, she is now a superb baker of just this very cake:
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| Deanna and TJ and Fem: great advocates of this particular cake |
Decadent Chocolate Cake
240 grams butter (half a pound) (Do not even THINK of substituting it with anything else. At all)
290 grams castor sugar (325ml or 1.5 cups)
4 eggs
86 grams cocoa (1 cup or 250 ml sifted cocoa)
125 grams cake flour or ordinary flour (1 cup or 250 ml, sifted)
1 teaspoon baking powder
125 ml milk (1/2 cup)
Pinch of salt
Vanilla essence
Pre-heat oven to 180 °C, 350 °F, gas mark 4
*Option for less dark, chocolatey cake, is to use 43 grams cocoa and 187.5 grams of flour, i.e., ½ cup of cocoa and 1 ½ cups of flour.
Cream shortening and sugar very well. Obviously, it is best to leave the butter out of the fridge for a few hours to ensure easy beating. As always, if your thumb print makes an indent easily in the butter, it is perfect for beating. Or, for the scientifically minded, check the butter is at 65 °F or 18.3 °C. For that matter, also have eggs at room temperature for any baking.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating approximately 30 second between additions.
*Option for less dark, chocolatey cake, is to use 43 grams cocoa and 187.5 grams of flour, i.e., ½ cup of cocoa and 1 ½ cups of flour.
Cream shortening and sugar very well. Obviously, it is best to leave the butter out of the fridge for a few hours to ensure easy beating. As always, if your thumb print makes an indent easily in the butter, it is perfect for beating. Or, for the scientifically minded, check the butter is at 65 °F or 18.3 °C. For that matter, also have eggs at room temperature for any baking.
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| Beat your butter, until smooth. A thumb should make an imprint in it easily, but not too easily. |
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| As you add the eggs, the mixture should resemble a mousse |
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| Adding the flour, baking powder and cocoa to the cake mixture |
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| The cake batter is good enough to eat as is |
Although you can place the entire mixture in one large tin, it is not generally advocated, as the sides are prone to charring and the middle to cracking - it's hard to get it not raw on the inside and burnt on the outside.
Instead, place the mixture in two tins - round or square, take your pick. My grandmother taught me always, where you have more than one tin, to add one plop of mixture to each in succession. So one plop to the left tin, one plop to the right and so on to ensure the mixture is evenly distributed. It is also important to ensure that you fill your spoon to about the same amount each time, obviously. Also, do make a small hole in the middle of the cake so, when it rises, it ends up flat, as opposed to slightly hilly in the middle.
Instead, place the mixture in two tins - round or square, take your pick. My grandmother taught me always, where you have more than one tin, to add one plop of mixture to each in succession. So one plop to the left tin, one plop to the right and so on to ensure the mixture is evenly distributed. It is also important to ensure that you fill your spoon to about the same amount each time, obviously. Also, do make a small hole in the middle of the cake so, when it rises, it ends up flat, as opposed to slightly hilly in the middle.
The cake is best frosted or iced with a ganache made out of heavy cream and dark chocolate. The recipe is that for the hot chocolate ganache, but with a substitution of dark chocolate. However, if you are in want of something truly decadently delicious, why not use the Mars Bar or Bar One flavoured chocolate icing or frosting
The ganache can be presented decoratively, in itself.
However, over time, we learnt how to plaster the ganache on smoothly, as undertaken for the ganache demonstrated in the marzipan modelling cake, and for pictures demonstrating how we get the non-drip effect, do look at the pictures indicating the tricks you can do in the bar one icing. We have learnt serving the cake from the fridge, whilst relatively cold, works superbly well (particularly if you cannot get double-thick cream and hence have to rely on whipping cream, such that the icing gets soft and a bit runny). Hence, also, why the cake is such so superb to serve with a plain vanilla ice-cream cake.
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| Ganache and cherries slathered onto a rich, dark, dense chocolate cake |
However, over time, we learnt how to plaster the ganache on smoothly, as undertaken for the ganache demonstrated in the marzipan modelling cake, and for pictures demonstrating how we get the non-drip effect, do look at the pictures indicating the tricks you can do in the bar one icing. We have learnt serving the cake from the fridge, whilst relatively cold, works superbly well (particularly if you cannot get double-thick cream and hence have to rely on whipping cream, such that the icing gets soft and a bit runny). Hence, also, why the cake is such so superb to serve with a plain vanilla ice-cream cake.
My friend, Humaira, has experimented around and found the cake most superb if you halve the cocoa and then add an extra half-cup of flour, making it 1.5 cups of cake flour and only 0.5 of a cup of cocoa.
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| Darkly decadent chocolate cake, ice-cream cake and a kranse kake |
When our son, Faran, was christened I made the dark chocolate cake and paired it with a white ice-cream cake. The kransekake, or traditional celebratory Norwegian cake in the background (that of the many rings), was baked by my godmother and yes, she has promised one day to show me how it is made together with the secret tips to its success but you'll have to wait for that one. However, I am planning a trip specially to document the process.
The little blue bootied cherubs decorating the cake are very specifically Arabic and traditionally are given to guests who come to visit you and your new-born once you are ensconced back at home. However, having lugged the chocolates in my hand-luggage home to South Africa when 7 months pregnant, we decided instead to save them for the special occasion of Faran's christening. So our special thanks to Hadeel for introducing us to the special sweeties and she and Ammar for taking us to the shop where they are made. They were a big hit on the day.
So, for the man in your life, do look at this tried and tested recipe, adapted from Lesley Faull which she appropriately named, "An Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake, Baked with a Man in Mind".
Double recipe (for when one isn't enough)
Double recipe (for when one isn't enough)
480 grams butter
580 grams castor sugar
8 eggs
172 grams cocoa (2 cups)
250 grams cake flour (2 cups)
2 teaspoons baking powder
250 ml milk
Pinch of salt
Vanilla essence
As you can see, chocolate cakes don't last long in our household:
As you can see, chocolate cakes don't last long in our household:
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| The case of the disappearing chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and cherries |
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