How To Make The Ultimate Chocolate Cake
This is - in our eyes at least - a perfect cake. It's the type of chocolate cake that would get Bruce Bogtrotter into some serious trouble...
Done in 3 - 4 hours
Serves 6
Ingredients
What you'll need:
450gdark cooking chocolate - Bourneville (for those in the UK) is great
350gunsalted butter
450gcaster sugar
120gplain flour
lightly beaten12 egg yolks
lightly beaten12 egg whites
a pinchflaked sea salt
For the ganache icing:
400gdark cooking chocolate
400gdouble cream
This is the chocolate cake my mum would make for me on my birthday, and it's the cake I'll make for my children on theirs. It's actually from one of my favourite recipe books Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes, but has been slightly tweaked so you can make two cakes and sandwich them together. When we were testing it in the Twisted studio it received the most unequivocally ecstatic response. If you're wondering how to make chocolate cake better than anyone else, read on.
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. In a large bowl melt the chocolate and butter together. This can be done in bursts in the microwave or over a double boiler.
Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until thick and creamy, then whisk in the chocolate and butter mix along with the flour. The mixture will be quite thick, but don't worry too much as it'll lighten with the addition of the egg whites.
In another large and very clean bowl, whisk together the egg whites (use an electric whisk, don't be a masochist) until they form stiff peaks.
Take a quarter of the egg whites and use a spatula to fold it into the chocolate mixture. Repeat with the second quarter, making sure it's fully folded in whilst trying to keep as much air in the mixture as possible. Repeat with the remaining egg whites - the mixture will have lightened both in colour and texture.
Grease and line two 23cm cake tins and divide the mixture gently and evenly between them. Bake them for around 45 minutes or until they have risen nice and evenly - don't worry if there are a few cracks as you're going to cover it with ganache anyway. Leave the cakes to cool for an hour or so in the fridge.
While they are cooling, melt the double cream and chocolate together either in a microwave or with a double boiler. When the cakes are cool, flip them (they tend to sink a little) and place one on a wire rack over a tray. Use a spatula to ice the cake on top, then place the second on top and ice the whole cake. Cool again in the fridge before very carefully lifting it off the rack and onto it's serving plate.