Sunday 29 August 2010

The Secret to a good Chocolate Cake

I always use unsweetened cocoa powder in my chocolate cakes. Melted solid chocolate is great for brownies, but I stopped using melted chocolate in my cakes within the first few months of baking because it's too heavy for cake. Every batch I baked with melted chocolate had a heavy, thick crust that was totally unappealing. Instead of adding melted unsweetened solid chocolate to the batter, I combine the cocoa powder with the dry ingredients. It gives me a great chocolate flavor and a rich but light, moist texture.


The commonly available unsweetened cocoa powder has 10% to 12% cocoa butter, which is alright but it also may be a little dry and dull. In my experience, there seems to be something in the chocolate liquor, the flavor-rich brown part of chocolate, that just doesn't bond with other fats as well as it does with cocoa butter. Bumping up the quantity of dairy butter isn't enough, adding cream makes the cake sticky, and vegetable oil merely coats everything in its path, making it feel moist when it's really just greasy. I've fiddled with chocolate cakes for years and still haven't found anything that works quite as well as unsweetened cocoa powder, with 22% to 24% cocoa butter.

20 comments:

  1. My baking skills are too low to ever make something good. Store bought for me, dude.

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  2. I've never tried melted chocolate in cake
    Have always used cocoa powder...
    am halfway tempted to try just to see what its like XD

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  3. Very useful recipe thank you.

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  4. My family has many culinary majors and they would all agree with this post.

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  5. What are your opinions on white/milk chocolate mixed cake?

    I'd like to see what a culinary expert like yourself has to say about it.

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  6. awesome idea. i like my cakes to be light and fluffy.

    red velvet will always be my favorite, though.

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  7. sweeet chocolate caaaaaaaaaaaake....

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  8. I love your recipes bro, trying one out in ten minutes.

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  9. mmmm cake

    chasityxo.blogspot.com

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  10. I shall try this sometime.

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  11. I just had a cake called batternburg, covered it in milk for the lulz and munched it down!

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  12. hey great tips there. Keep writing.

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  13. aren't you concerned your viewers might go fat from all the chocolate ? :P

    just joking, good job

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  14. Chocolate cake is always good. Can't wait to try out these tips

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  15. That's clever. Gotta try this

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  16. yummy ima nom nom nom all of that

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