Your Best Chocolate Cake Recipe

kylith

Bear with me here: I have never made a chocolate cake. I just don't really like chocolate cake. I know, I'm some sort of weirdo.

However, I have been asked to pay someone in chocolate cake (it's a barter situation) and I haven't a clue where to start as the internet is full of literally thousands of cake recipes. Ideas please!

Shenshen

Depends what kind of chocolate cake they're expecting, really.

I'm the same as you, chocolate cake doesn't do it for me. At least not the traditional Irish/British/American kind.
I've got a recipe for red wine and chocolate cake, though, that I simply love. It's not as chocolatey as the traditional chocolate cake, and has some nice flavours from the wine and some spices.
Don't know if that would be something you'd consider?

kylith

Shenshen wrote: »

Depends what kind of chocolate cake they're expecting, really.

I'm the same as you, chocolate cake doesn't do it for me. At least not the traditional Irish/British/American kind.
I've got a recipe for red wine and chocolate cake, though, that I simply love. It's not as chocolatey as the traditional chocolate cake, and has some nice flavours from the wine and some spices.
Don't know if that would be something you'd consider?

That sounds amazing, and she's French so wine flavoured cake would probably go down a treat!

Shenshen

kylith wrote: »

That sounds amazing, and she's French so wine flavoured cake would probably go down a treat!

Here's the recipe :

4 eggs
200 g sugar
200 g softened butter
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp rum, or 1 tsp rum essence
250 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
125 ml red wine
150 g grated chocolate or chocolate chips

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.
Whip the eggs and sugar until they go a bit pale, then start adding the softened butter.
Sift the dry ingredients into the mix and add the red wine and rum (or essence).
Fill into a cake tin (Gugelhupf is traditional, but if you want frosting on it maybe go for a simple tin). Bake for around 40 - 50 minutes.

German being purist when it comes to cakes would only dust the cake with some icing sugar, but if you want to make chocolate frosting and make it look fancy, go for it

kylith

As I put attempt 1 into the oven I realised that I'd forgotten the cinnamon. Not as big as issue as then realising that my scales had be set for ml rather than grams. While they're more or less the same I cannot call attempt #1 an unqualified success. Still, partially failed cake is still partially edible cake

EJD

Not exactly cake but the Jamie Oliver Bloomin Brilliant Brownies recipe is amazing. I've made them countless times now and they consistently turn out well! Very easy to make too.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/chocolate-recipes/bloomin-brilliant-brownies/

Shenshen

kylith wrote: »

As I put attempt 1 into the oven I realised that I'd forgotten the cinnamon. Not as big as issue as then realising that my scales had be set for ml rather than grams. While they're more or less the same I cannot call attempt #1 an unqualified success. Still, partially failed cake is still partially edible cake

Looks a bit on the dense side, but as long as it tastes ok you can always call it chocolate fudge cake

kylith

Shenshen wrote: »

Looks a bit on the dense side, but as long as it tastes ok you can always call it chocolate fudge cake

Turns out that I wrote the recipe wrong and was 50g of flour under what I should have had

I've asked for a report on cake #2, which I cooked in a springform tin and which looked much more cake-y.