chocolate cake

Cloud Forest Chocolate Cake

June 20, 2017 by sblades 8 Comments

The cake I chose for this month’s Cake Slice Baker’s challenge is called Willie Harcourt-Cooze’s Cloud Forest Chocolate Cake. Quite a name for a cake, but Willie Harcourt-Cooze was the guy who came up with it. Apparently he moved from Britain to Venezuela so he could immerse himself completely in world-class cacao (aka cocoa beans). He built a farm in the cloud forest and began experimenting with and harvesting cacoa. Sounds like quite an adventure, doesn’t it?

When a local sugar plantation gave him raw sugar cane, he used it with his cacoa and a few other standard ingredients and created this decadent chocolate cake.

The original recipe had ground almonds in it, but I used an equivalent amount of flour instead. When I baked it, the cake swelled on one end like an ocean wave – it was really strange! I’ve never seen a cake do that. After it was finished baking though, I gently pressed down the high side and it settled into a normal-ish looking cake. Not sure if the flour instead of almonds had something to do with it, but it’s fine now!

Be sure and prep your ingredients before starting this cake. It looks pretty straightforward, but it takes a little time to chop up that chocolate. Oh, and about that chocolate. It required 100% cacao bar and I could only find a ten dollar 99% bar. Ten dollars! Yikes. I went ahead and got it, though, because I was curious to see what a difference it would make.

The chocolate definitely made a difference. Bret thought it was a little bitter and I agreed, mainly because I’m not used to that deep dark of chocolate. The icing is heavenly made with it, though, and I would use it on a number of baked goods (vanilla cupcakes come to mind). I find that Europeans seem to prefer drier cakes than the U.S. and I did find this one to be a little dry, but that’s entirely subjective since I substituted the flour for the almonds.

I’ll be cleaning chocolate out from under my fingernails and scraping it off of the counter for awhile, but I enjoyed this challenge. It was the first time I’d used a springform cake pan and I look forward to making a cheesecake in it sometime soon! If you like chocolate, you might like this cake and I highly recommend the icing.

Take a look at the other creations by the Cake Slice Bakers (below the recipe)!

Cloud Forest Chocolate Cake

**1/2; Very chocolate, chocolate, chocolate cake and icing. The icing is to die for, but the cake is a little dense. Adapted from Willie Harcourt-Cooze's recipe slightly.

Servings: 12

Author: Willie Harcourt-Cooze

Ingredients

6.5 oz. 100% cacao finely chopped or grated
1 C butter
6 eggs room temperature
1/4 C light brown sugar
2/3 C granulated sugar
1 C all-purpose flour (original recipe - 1 C finely ground almonds)
pinch of salt
Icing
1 C heavy cream
1/4 C sugar, plus 2 tbsp sugar
3 oz cacao finely chopped or grated

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325°. Grease and line a 10" springform cake pan with parchment paper.
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the bottom of the bowl is not in contact with the water. Remove from the heat and set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugars together until pale and doubled in size. Slowly add in the cooled melted chocolate mixture to the eggs and mix until well combined. Fold in the flour and salt and gently stir until blended.
Pour the batter evenly into the springform pan and smooth the top. Bake for 30 minutes or until slightly risen and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Remove the cake from the oven and set on a rack (in the pan) to cool completely.
Meanwhile, make the frosting by putting the cream and sugar into a pan over low heat. Bring it just to the point of boiling and remove from the heat. Stir in the 3 oz. of grated/chopped chocolate and stir until thoroughly combined. (About 5 full minutes to actually get the chocolate incorporated.) Set aside to cool until desired consistency.
Remove the cake from the pan and peel off the parchment paper. Put the completely cooled cake onto a cake stand or plate, and smooth the frosting on the cake, top and sides.
Keep the cake at room temperature until ready to serve. If you refrigerate it, the frosting will harden too much.

Recipe Notes

Tips and Stuff:

If I ever made this again, I would use a smaller pan - maybe a 9" round cake pan, so it would be a little thicker.

I'm told it would definitely be more moist with the ground almonds instead of the flour.

Four stars for the frosting!

An InLinkz Link-up

Chocolate Magic Cake

January 12, 2015 by sblades 2 Comments

This recipe has been floating around Pinterest in many forms. I keep thinking I’ll make this every time the photos pop up, because it looks so good. It is good! It’s easy to make and is a good little dessert for any weeknight. One of those I’ve-got-everything-in-my-cabinet recipes.

There’s a vanilla version, but since there’s also this chocolate version it was no contest. Chocolate won.

The idea behind this “magic” cake is that you make the batter, pour it in the pan and it miraculously (?) divides into three different layers – a thin cake base, custard layer and fluffy cake topping. Well, it worked, but my bottom layer was barely noticeable.

We really enjoyed this cake and I especially liked the custard layer. It was like a cross between a custard and flan to me, and the flavor was delicious. We warmed our pieces up a few seconds in the microwave and plopped some vanilla ice cream on top. Truly an enjoyable dessert!

Chocolate Magic Cake

***1/2; original recipe from JoCooks.com ; simple ingredients, great dessert.

Servings: 12

Ingredients

4 eggs , room temperature and separated
1 tbsp water
3/4 C sugar
1 stick butter , melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 1/2 tbsp all purpose flour
6 tbsp cocoa powder
2 C milk , slightly warmed
pinch of salt
1 tsp vinegar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease/flour an 8x8" baking pan. Separate the eggs and add the egg yolks to the bowl of a mixer. Add the water and sugar to the egg yolks. Beat on high until the eggs are light and creamy.
Add the melted butter (slightly cooled), vanilla extract and salt to the mixer and continue beating until butter is fully incorporated and mixture is light and fluffy. Stir together the flour and cocoa and add to the egg/butter mixture in three batches - incorporate well between batches. After flour mixture is added, pour the milk into the mixing bowl and mix until well blended. The batter will be thin.
In a clean mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites and vinegar until stiff. Fold the stiff egg whites into the batter a little at a time, just until whites are incorporated - don't over mix. Batter will still be thin.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45-55 minutes. The cake will still jiggle a bit when you take it out - just make sure the cake on top is done and browned. Let it cool completely before cutting into squares and serving.

Recipe Notes

Tips and Stuff:

Make sure the butter is slightly cooled before adding to the egg yolk mixture so the yolks don't cook.

Next time I will use a glass pan. I think it will come out better when sliced.

Austrian Sachertorte – A Daring Baker’s Challenge

October 27, 2014 by sblades 5 Comments

And what a challenge it was! The October Daring Baker’s challenge was brought to us by Korena of Korena in the Kitchen. She took us to Austria and introduced us to the wonders of the Sachertorte!

The Sachertorte was apparently created in 1832 by a baker named Sacher for some rich prince guy. If I started practicing in 1832, I might have this cake down by now. It was a great challenge and was going along beautifully until the last step – the chocolate glaze.

But first, creating the cake. The ingredients aren’t that difficult – mostly things I had in the cabinets already, except for a good quality (I used Ghirardelli) bittersweet chocolate. My taste test confirmed that it was of good quality….

I put together the cake batter, including 6 beaten, lightly sugared egg whites:

Beautiful! They were folded into the batter and the chocolate was stirred in. This resulted in a tender-crumbed cake:

The cake was sliced horizontally and flipped so that the flat side was on top. Then a jam glaze (I used Red Plum jam, but usually apricot is used) is slathered on the bottom layer and top, along with the sides of the cake and allowed to set and soak in:

I should’ve quit there, but I didn’t.

Next was the famous sachertorte chocolate glaze. After melting the plastic top to my candy thermometer waiting for the sugar water mixture to come up to temperature (melting plastic – not a pleasant odor), I whisked in the chocolate. OK, a little thick, so it’s recommended to add a few drops of water to get that thin glazed sheen. After a fourth of a cup of water, drop by drop, I decided it was as good as it was going to get and rushed over to the cake to glaze it before it thickened and clumped. Too late. It instantly clumped and became a thick chocolate (but tasty) mess. I spread it as well as I could, but as a few others on the Daring Baker site described theirs, it ended up being a “rustic” sachertorte.

Hmmm, I was disappointed but undeterred. I proudly wrote “Sacher” on top of the torte because apparently Mr. Sacher was very proud of his creation and this is standard. I am posting a photo even though it is the ugliest cake I’ve ever seen and Herr Sacher is probably turning in his grave, but I spent almost five hours on it, so it deserves to be seen. However, there’s also a delicious slice to look at:

It was great with coffee, but my next encounter with Chef Sacher’s torte will be a visit to the local La Madeleine! It was fun and I’m glad I did it, but probably will stick with Grandmother’s Cake-in-the-Pan.

Instead of posting the eight-page recipe, I’m going to link you over to the challenger, Korena‘s October 27 post. That way you can view the recipe and also see what the torte is supposed to look like. Thanks for the fun challenge, Korena!

Grandmother’s Cake-in-the-Pan

May 5, 2014 by sblades Leave a Comment

Everyone has their favorite chocolate cake recipe that they swear by and this one is it for my family. I’ve had this recipe and the photos in the wings for quite awhile now, trying to decide when to post it.

Since this is my 50th post, now is the perfect time to put up this recipe since it’s not only the best chocolate cake and icing recipe ever, but it also stirs a lot of great memories. This is Bret’s precious Grandmother’s recipe and she passed away a few years ago at the age of 102. The story is that one year Grandmother made 365 cakes for people (including 100 Christmas fruitcakes)! We were so blessed to have her in our lives.

Grandmother made two of these cakes for our wedding – one for the groom’s cake and one to take with us on our honeymoon trip. That cake stayed moist throughout our week-long honeymoon and seemed to get better everyday! It’s a heavy, dense, moist cake and the icing is thick, chocolaty and fudge-like. (You can see from the photos how the icing melts into the top of the cake a little since you ice it while it’s still warm. mmmmm) This is so great with a tall glass of cold milk. I hope you try this one!

Cake in the Pan

*****One of my few FIVE star recipes. A really great chocolate cake and chocolate icing recipe.

Servings: 20 -24

Ingredients

2 ½ C sugar
1 C Crisco (do not use butter)
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
1 C buttermilk
2 ¾ C flour
½ C cocoa
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 C boiling water
Chocolate Icing:
2 oz cocoa (about 2 heaping tablespoons)
2 C sugar
2/3 C evaporated milk
½ C Crisco (no substitutions)
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 13x9” cake pan.
In a large mixing bowl, combine sugar and shortening, then add eggs and mix well. In a small bowl, put soda into milk and stir. Sift flour, salt and cocoa together into a large bowl. Pour milk alternately with flour and cocoa into the sugar/shortening mixture. Add vanilla.
After all has been mixed, add boiling water and mix till blended. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until the cake pulls slightly from the edges and a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool only 5 minutes, then ice warm cake.
For the icing: Add Crisco, salt and milk together in a large saucepan on medium-low and stir for 1 to 2 minutes. Mix sugar and cocoa together and add to the saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil (stirring all the time) then boil for exactly 2 minutes gently. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Beat with mixer until ready to frost cake (it will set quickly, so keep beating until ready to frost). If it should get too thick, you can add a little evaporated milk and mix in. (You will need to beat the icing for a long long time to get the thick consistency correct, but worth it!!!!)

Recipe Notes

Tips and Stuff:

Go exactly by the recipe, including shortening and time listed to make the icing.

Depending on your oven, you may want to take the cake out earlier - you don't want to bake it too long.

We used the icing as fudge one Christmas and it was a big hit. Just press it into a 9x9" or larger parchment-lined pan and let it set at room temperate.

Be patient when beating the icing - it takes awhile to get thick and creamy.

By the way, the cake got it's name from the grandchildren - it was Grandmother's cake-in-the-pan that they got when they visited her!

Main navigation

chocolate cake