My presentation may need a little work, but this chocolate cake was DELICIOUS.
I rarely bake these days since my kitchen is so small, but last weekend was my boyfriend’s birthday, so I broke out the cake pans. I enjoy watching Ina Garten’s show, the Barefoot Contessa, and love to try her recipes as much as possible. For this cake, I combined two different Barefoot Contessa recipes – Beatty’s Chocolate Cake for the cake itself, and for the frosting, I used the ganache recipe from Ina’s Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes (both combined and pasted below).
I didn’t even bother to dig my stand mixer out and instead simply used a wisk and spatula to mix the ingredients.
Ingredients
- Butter, for greasing the pans
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
- 2 cups sugar
- 3/4 cups good cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee
- Chocolate Ganache, recipe follows
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 ° F. Butter two 8-inch x 2-inch round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.
Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.
For the ganache:
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 8 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules
Directions
Cook the heavy cream, chocolate chips, and instant coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally.
Place 1st cake layer, flat side up, on a flat plate or cake pedestal. With a knife or offset spatula, spread the top with ganache. Place the second layer on top, rounded side up, and spread the ganache evenly on the top and sides of the cake.
Do not refrigerate.
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