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chocolate cake of doom
18 Feb 2009 02:43 pmI made a single-layer (ie half recipe) Chocolate Cake of DOOOOOOOM yesterday, but was forced to cut back the cocoa because I hadn't realised we were nearly out. And in the frosting, instead of unsweet cocoa I had to use some hot chocolate mix. It's still pretty good - less chocolate and more sugar is the overall impression, which makes it taste more like an ordinary chocolate cake; I think it would be better with a slightly sour frosting, maybe cream cheese with a hint of citrus, than with the cocoa butter one anyway, which is so rich as to be nearly inedible...
Some more notes on Chocolate Cake of Doom: It's so chocolatey, in its full-strength form, that most people can't eat more than a single piece, so cutting back still leaves it very chocolatey (although once I accidentally doubled the cocoa and it was still edible. Uh, for me, not so much for all the Finnish people, haha), so there's obviously a lot of leeway there!
Another thing is how it calls for coffee. This is obviously the 'secret ingredient' because it's in such a small amount, but not being a coffee-drinker, nor a coffee maker, I've never, ever made it with brewed coffee. Once last year I made it with instant cappuccino, which is delicious; I figured that it would be great because I love chocolate and coffee together. But no! It wasn't. Instead it made it way too much. I usually substitute flavoured black tea for coffee: Forest Fruit, which is black tea with a hint of mixed berries (blueberry, raspberry and blackberry, I believe), is just about perfect. The quantity of tea in the cake is so small that it doesn't really do anything strange - instead it leaves the cake with a very faint tinge of fruit which really goes a long way to cut the sickliness of all that chocolate and sugar, as subtle as it is. Coffee seemed to go the other direction, making it even richer.
(The cake said 'IT'S OKAY' spelled in sugar hearts, because I realised belatedly that writing 'IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD' in sugar hearts according to my first plan would be a huge pain in the ass.)
I wanted to make a lemon cake with creamcheese icing, but I didn't have enough eggs. Or creamcheese. Maybe next time.
Some more notes on Chocolate Cake of Doom: It's so chocolatey, in its full-strength form, that most people can't eat more than a single piece, so cutting back still leaves it very chocolatey (although once I accidentally doubled the cocoa and it was still edible. Uh, for me, not so much for all the Finnish people, haha), so there's obviously a lot of leeway there!
Another thing is how it calls for coffee. This is obviously the 'secret ingredient' because it's in such a small amount, but not being a coffee-drinker, nor a coffee maker, I've never, ever made it with brewed coffee. Once last year I made it with instant cappuccino, which is delicious; I figured that it would be great because I love chocolate and coffee together. But no! It wasn't. Instead it made it way too much. I usually substitute flavoured black tea for coffee: Forest Fruit, which is black tea with a hint of mixed berries (blueberry, raspberry and blackberry, I believe), is just about perfect. The quantity of tea in the cake is so small that it doesn't really do anything strange - instead it leaves the cake with a very faint tinge of fruit which really goes a long way to cut the sickliness of all that chocolate and sugar, as subtle as it is. Coffee seemed to go the other direction, making it even richer.
(The cake said 'IT'S OKAY' spelled in sugar hearts, because I realised belatedly that writing 'IT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD' in sugar hearts according to my first plan would be a huge pain in the ass.)
I wanted to make a lemon cake with creamcheese icing, but I didn't have enough eggs. Or creamcheese. Maybe next time.
