I am back after a long gap! It was more of a writer's block, along with other family affairs including my laziness to water-mark the pics for the blog and then posting it here. However, I must admit that this time I am back for a bunch of young ladies, who have pushed me to overcome all these hurdles and to be back with my blog!! Thank you my dear girls (You know, who you are) !!!
Today I am going to present the recipe of Death by Chocolate cake. But before that, a little bit of background story.
This time, I baked for myself, yes - you read it right! I bake for everyone in the household, and not only household, at times even for my relatives and neighbors, and in my birthday, I do deserve a cake for myself too. I thought it's a way to pamper the little baby within me. So this time I decided to bake for myself. Also, there is an added advantage, when you bake a cake for yourself - that is you know, exactly what you want! If you get a cake from outside, it is not always up to your expectation. You might find it too sweet or less chocolaty or too creamy - in fact, this is the case with me. May be since I bake at home, I never find the store-bought cakes are as good as mine. It might be a little bit of over-confidence on my side, but I really can't help it!
So I wanted to have a cake with lots and lot of chocolate - you can say overdose of chocolate! Hahaha!! I am too fond of chocolates and that too, dark chocolates, so I wanted to be in deep chocolate, a bite full of soft, moussy chocolate with crunchy cake layers - ummmm.... I was drooling, just by the thought of it.
The cake was a basic chocolate cake. You will find the recipe of a basic chocolate cake by clicking on this link - Basic chocolate cake. I planned to use as much of dark chocolates as possible. At every step of preparing the icing, I was tasting it - just to confirm that it is as per my level of requirement. You can do the same, can add more chocolates or can lessen the amount too. It is completely up to the expectation of your taste-buds!
I used two types of icing. One is a dark chocolate ganache, which I used for layering,and the other is fresh chocolate cream icing for covering the cake. For topping I used again another layer of dark chocolate spirals.
For the ganache, I used -
Bournville Dark Chocolate Bar (200 gm) - 2
Amul Whipping Cream (200 ml) - 2 packs
For the icing -
Amul Whipping Cream (200 ml) - 1 pack
Icing Sugar - 1/2 cup
Cocoa Powder - 1/2 cup or more, as per taste
For the topping -
Bournville Dark Chocolate Bar (200 gm) - 1
Process -
Bake the cake as per the instruction, given here. Let it keep aside and allow to be at room temperature. Once it comes at room temperature, keep it inside refrigerator for at least 3-4 hours to chill.
To prepare the ganache, place a glass bowl on top of a saucepan with boiling water. Pour the whipping cream and let it melt completely. Add the chocolate bars and keep on stirring, until all nicely melt and mixed up. The consistency will be smooth. Remove the bowl from hot water and allow it to cool down at room temperature. Next keep this in refrigerator for at least 6-8 hours before using. Best will be to prepare the ganache and icing one day ahead and to chill these overnight, before using on cake.
To prepare the icing, place the bowl and the whipping rods inside freezer for 30 mins. Take a bigger bowl and place few ice cubes, put the chilled bowl on top of ice cubes. The whipping cream pack has to be kept inside refrigerator too, for at least couple of days before using as the icing. All these restrictions are to be followed, just because the whipping cream tends to melt down quickly, particularly in summer time. So unless it is perfectly chilled, you won't get best output after whipping. Now you have to whip the cream, until it forms soft peak. Add the icing sugar gradually and keep on whipping until you get stiff peak. This whipping has to be done in highest speed of your hand-mixer and for at least 20 mins taking frequent breaks after 3-4 mins of running the mixer. Once you get stiff peak, stop the mixer. Sprinkle the cocoa powder and slowly fold in to the icing. Don't spend too much time in this, again the cream might melt. Keep it inside the freezer overnight, just before using whip it up a little using a spatula.
To prepare the topping, keep the chocolate bar outside for a day, or you can warm it little in microwave too. But be very careful, not to melt the chocolate - it will be just little softer. When it is soft, use a peeler, to bring out curls or spirals out of the chocolate. Again place these curls inside refrigerator to get them back into hard shapes.
So now you know, you have to be prepare with all these items at least a day before you decorate the cake and then the cake has to set again in refrigerator for over-night to get the best result. Actually it took 3 days for me, to serve the final cake.
Now the decoration part - bring out the baked cake and the ganache from the refrigerator. Slice the cake in half, you may use sugar syrup to soak the cake a little, if you want. Layer the cake with the ganache - use all of it in layering, because you want a thick layering here, since its a death by chocolate. Place the other slice of the cake on top of the ganache layer and again place it back inside refrigerator.
Meanwhile, bring out the icing and whip up it a little. Again bring out the cake and cover with the icing. You don't need to be perfect in this, because the topping will cover all the faults in icing - it is quite helpful for the beginners like me. Yes, I admit, I am yet to achieve a perfect finish in icing my cake, so I need to cover up with toppings.
So after icing, sprinkle the chocolate curls on top and now again place it back inside the refrigerator to set the cake over-night.
To die a death in deep chocolates, don't forget to drizzle some chocolate sauce on top of the cake just before serving!!! I was just kidding!!!
Happy baking and hope to see you soon, this time!!!
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