Here in Sicily I've been inspired by all
the fantastic coffee here and the great
cakes that we've been eating and I've
decided to make a gorgeous espresso
chocolate layer cake to share with you. Now on
a scale from one to ten it's probably
about a seven to make but if you think
about it here in this little holiday
home that we are in, we've been able to make
it and I'm going to take you through it
step by step. Before we make this cake
let me just talk you through the layers
we're starting with a super moist
chocolate devil's food cake and I've
brushed that with a little espresso as
well, above that we've got this light
and airy Swiss meringue buttercream with
a wonderful espresso flavouring in there.
Above that we've got another layer of
Swiss meringue buttercream this one is
flavoured with chocolate, in total three
layers of moist devil's food cake and
then the whole thing has been coated
with this gorgeous honey and chocolate
ganache coating. So if you think you're
up for it come on let's get on and bake
this. Whilst we do the cake mix you might
as well have your oven preheated to 175
degrees Celsius thats 350 Fahrenheit
because it doesn't take long to make
this batter. Now I have some softened
butter in my mixing bowl, 345 grams that's
about 12 ounces of slightly salted
butter and into that I'm just going to add 450
grams of soft brown sugar that's about a
pound.
Now we want to cream these together, now
I'm just going to scrape down the side
of my bowl. Into that batter we're going
to add three eggs,
again we're just going to scrape the
bowl down. Now in a separate bowl I've got 360 grams
of all-purpose flour that's about 12 and
a half ounces and I'm going to be adding
into that 75 grams, two-and-a-half ounces
of cocoa, three-quarters of a teaspoon of
salt and 2 teaspoons of baking soda and
I'm going to give that a rough mix through,
it doesn't have to be completely mixed.
Now I've got two and a quarter cups of
strong espresso coffee that I've made
here, I'm not going to add it all in at
once so I'm going to add 1 cup in at first,
roughly half my dry ingredients and
we're going to mix this together. So when
that's combined I'm just going to take
the rest of our coffee and we'll add the
last of our dry ingredients and we're
just going to mix it on a low speed
until we've got a lovely smooth batter. Now
I'm going to bake three cakes from this batter
with 8-inch round that's about 20
centimeters and what I've done with each
one is lined it with butter put a circle
of parchment paper on the bottom and then I
dusted over with some cocoa powder and
what that's going to do is let the cake
release really easy once it's baked. So let's
get and divide that batter up.
Now we just want to level down our
batter and we're going to bake the cakes
for 30 to 40 minutes I found in my oven
it's about 35 minutes until they're
perfectly cooked.
Now when you're three cakes come out of
the oven
you should give them a little push down
now if they're fully cooked through you'll
get a slight bounce back, Take them out
of the oven and let them cool down for
at least 30 minutes or so until they're
cool enough that you can touch. Then what
we want to do is just put your hand on
to the Cake, turn it out. Now it should
come out super easy like that, I'm going
to pop it onto a cooling rack and we let
it continue to completely cool down
until we're ready to use it.
Next we're going to make a delicious Swiss
meringue buttercream to go inside and
outside this cake and I'm making it with two
different flavours, an espresso and a
real chocolate. Now a Swiss meringue
frosting is a little more complicated to
make than a regular butter frosting but
trust me it's so much more delicious and
lighter. Now we just want to separate six
eggs and six yolks. Pop my
yolks away, now keep those yolks you can
always use them in another recipe later
on. Now we're pop our 6 egg whites into a bowl and
add into that 300 grams, that's a cup and
a half of regular granulated sugar. We're
going to heat this on the stove on a
double boiler and we're going to whisk it
with an electric whisk while it is, to get
the volume in there. It should be about
70 degrees Celsius that's a hundred and
sixty fahrenheit but you can generally
see when the crystals of the sugar have
dissolved and you've got this lovely
fluffy white meringue. Our meringue foam
now it's nice and stiff, now we're going
to add into that 500 grams of butter,
that's about 17 ounces and I'm going to
put it in a bit at a time but make
sure the butter is nice and soft and
it's at room temperature. We pop this in
and start to whisk this up,
add a little bit at a time.
Now once all the butter is incorporated
into the meringue you're going to see it
get a lot looser, so we just want to
continue to whisk this until it thickens
up again and then pop this aside for a
moment. I've got to prepare some
chocolate and some espresso. Now I
haven't got a microwave where I am at
the moment so I've still got my hot water
here on the stove
I've got 200 grams of dark chocolate in
another bowl and I'm just going to pop it
over the hot water until this is
completely melted.
I want that to cool down just a little
bit before we add our butter cream into
it, I'm going to take half of this
buttercream now and just pop it in with
our cooled chocolate and then mix it
together so we get a lovely chocolate
buttercream and then we're going to
leave this to completely cool down. Now
with the other buttercream we've got
here we're going to make this an nice
coffee flavour.
I've got a strong espresso shot here, I'm
not going to use it all I'm going to use
just about half, pour that over the
buttercream there, keep a little bit back
there. I've taken the whisk off the mixer and
I'm just going to blend it in
So I've got this lovely smooth espresso
buttercream. Time to construct this
beautiful cake. Now I've got my cake
layers here and I'm just going to level
a tiny bit off the top I want about an inch
thickness, so we have three even layers
of cake now, Just going to turn that
over to take the paper off, I'll just lay it
down on a fresh piece of wax paper, I'm
going to brush some espresso onto here
just to get that rich coffee flavor into
the cake. Next we're going to take some
of the espresso cream and what I want to
do is just evenly coat over this cake.
Next we're going to take our chocolate
buttercream, I'm going to lay that over the
top
and then add your next layer cake on
there and repeat and the last layer. I'm
going to use the chocolate buttercream
I've decided, I'm going to put a very
thin coat, just a crumb coat on this. Now
set my chocolate cake to chill in the
fridge we want it in there for at least a
couple of hours, perhaps even overnight
and whilst that chills I'm going to get on
and make a beautiful chocolate ganache
to coat it with. I'm using a dark
chocolate, 135 grams, that's four and a
half ounces and in a bowl I'm just going
to heat it over a double boiler until
completely melted. Now the last little
bit of chocolate is just starting to melt
and that's only taking a few moments.
What I'm going to do is just turn the
heat off and set that aside, in a small
pan I've got one cup of thick cream and
I'm going to take 4 tablespoons of honey into the
cream and I want to bring the honey and
cream up to a rolling boil. Now thats come
up to the boil, let's take it off the
heat. I have my melted chocolate, my honey
and cream, I'm just going to pour half the honey
and cream into the chocolate and we're
just going to mix that together until we
get a nice smooth cream. I'll add in the
last honey and cream and stir this until
you get a lovely rich ganache. Now whilst
our ganache is still nice and hot,
I've got 75 grams, about a third of a cup
of salted butter, I'm just going to pop that
in and this is going to give a lovely
gloss to the ganache. Now if we were to pour
this over the cake right now it would just run
straight off the side, so we want to cool
this down to 40 degrees Celsius, thats
about a hundred and four fahrenheit and
then give it a lovely even coating.
Now my cake surface is nice and chilled
it's been in the fridge, I'm just going to take that paper
off of there and very gently.....
I'm going to lay it down on a cooling rack
the ganache is at the temperature I'm
looking for and I'm going to pour the chocolate
over the cake, let it run down the sides.
Now the last stage ,this may look like a
bowl of crushed Oreo cookies but it's actually
the top of, the trimmings of the cake and I
just dried it in the oven and made it
into a loose Crumb. It's easy to get a nice
smooth top with a poured sauce but sometimes it
can be a little rough on the edges. I'm going
to take our crumb and I'm just going to
drag it up the sides of the cake and
it's just going to give this lovely
finish to the side of the cake.
Now I'm so looking forward to this, just take that
piece of cake out, if you're brave enough
to give this ago
send me some photographs on social media
I love to see how it comes out for you.
It just remains for me now to give this a
try.
That is probably one of the most
delicious chocolate cakes I've ever tried.
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