HCB - Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache

Not too long ago, the Heavenly Cake Bakers baked the Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to bake along that week so I postponed it to this week's Free Choice. The advantage is that you get to read everyone's experience/likes/dislikes. Those that followed the recipe in the book, said that the cake was too crumbly. While those that followed the alternative mixing instructions on Rose's blog said the cake was too dense. My mission: figure out a way to make a good "in-between" cake. Easier said than done but I thought I'd give it a try.

Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache

Note: these as my personal thoughts/opinions that I'm drawing from my baking experience over several years - part of my approach to this problem is science-based while some are "gut" based :o) so please feel free to correct me!

Here's my thought process on achieving an "in-between" cake, meaning a cake that's soft and tender yet sturdy enough so it won't crumble when you eat it. To me that means the cake's structure has to be addressed. It needs to be strengthened. There are several ways to do that. I chose to make 2 changes to the recipe ingredients for that: use 3 whole eggs instead of 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks. The protein in the extra egg white will provide more structure to the cake whereas the fat content in the 2 egg yolks might have an over-tenderizing effect. The other change is to substitute half the cake flour with bleached all-purpose flour. The AP flour has more protein than cake flour and therefore will give us more structure.

I also modified the mixing instructions. The two-stage method in the book is great and quick, but I think that in this case it might have contributed to the cake's structure problem because the flour gets coated with fat early in the process which limits its liquid absorption, and therefore its gluten formation. So I went back to the "traditional" creaming method.

If you've read my blog for a while you know that I like to tweak butter cake recipes a bit by substituting 1-2 Tbsp of butter with canola oil. I think it makes the cake more moist without sacrificing the butter flavor. I did the same thing here.

Modified instructions:

• Combine the unsweetened chocolate and oil, and use the microwave to melt the chocolate. Set aside.
• Sift and whisk together the dry ingredients including the cocoa powder.
• Cream room temp butter and sugar until creamy and fluffy.
• Lightly beat eggs with a fork and add the eggs to the butter mixture in 3-4 steps.
• Add the chocolate mixture and vanilla. Beat until well combined.
• Add the dry ingredients in 4 steps, alternating with the sour cream first, and then lukewarm (not boiling) water in 2 steps. Scrape down the sides.
• Beat the cake mixture for an additional 15 seconds on medium-high speed.
• Pour batter into pan and bake in a preheated oven.

Thick and creamy chocolate batter

Oops... right after I took this shot, I realized I forgot the cake strips. Fixed it!

I made only half the recipe which I baked in a 9" round cake pan for 25 minutes.

My baking time was 5 minute less than the minimum baking time in the book. After I gave it some thought I realized that I should have decreased the oven temp by 25 F because I was using a dark pan. Oh well. It wasn't overbaked so I was happy.

Caramel for the ganache

The Midnight Ganache wasn't hard to make at all. My favorite part was the caramel. Yum! I love chocolate but I really wished I didn't have to add the chocolate to the caramel :o) Too bad I couldn't taste the caramel in the end. Having said that, the consistency of this frosting after I let it sit at room temperature for about 24 hours, was wonderful. Not fussy, easy to spread, and although I didn't try it, I think it would be pipe-able too.

The frosting is so smooth and chocolatey

My husband likes chocolate but isn't a huge fan of dark chocolate. In order to keep this cake from being too chocolatey, I decided to forgo using the Midnight Ganache for the cake filling, and instead fill the cake with 1/2 cup of whipping cream which I whipped with a little sugar, then I folded in about 1.5 Tbsp of homemade triple berry jam. Yum!

A slice of chocolatey goodness. Bon appetit!

Final thoughts/tips:

• We both loved this cake. The cake still had plenty chocolate flavor without being bitter. Hubby gave it an 8.5/9 out of 10. Not bad for a non-chocoholic :o)
• The cake was chocolatey, moist, melt-in-your-mouth tender, and the sweet filling with a slight tang from the berries was a nice contrast. The thin layer of Midnight Ganache frosting was perfect.
• Above all, the cake wasn't crumbly when we ate it. I think it was the perfect "in-between" cake :o)
• I made half the recipe and used 1.5 whole eggs. How do you measure 1/2 an egg? Easy! Get your scale ready, crack and weigh your egg, lightly beat it with a fork, and then use half the weight!
• I love brown sugar (dark brown sugar, that is). However when a cake recipe only calls for brown sugar, I like to mix both brown sugar and granulated sugar (50-50) because you get the best of both worlds that way since they each have their own characteristics.
• Recap of my changes: for the full recipe, use 3 whole eggs, 7 oz butter, 1 oz oil, half brown sugar, and half granulated sugar. Don't forget to read the section on how I modified the mixing instructions.
• Please let me know if you get a chance to make this cake as described above and how you liked it :o)