Chocolate Enigma Cake

It’s Mike’s Birthday (last month) and every year, it’s going to be chocolate. When I saw this cake on Hearty Bakes, I totally loved how dark it looked and it seemed I can smell the chocolate from the screen, very very delicious looking. I’m not really an all chocolate girl, but I do eat chocolate once in a blue moon. But my hubby lurves this dark looking confectionary that I’m just so so with. Any chocolate cake, he’ll say, hmm,.. now this is what I call cake. Hahahaha!! So, how can I not make him chocolate cakes for his birthdays ??

I also had a can of black pitted cherries and I might as well use that to fill the cake, since the cake is rather short Well, I baked the cake in a 9 inch pan rather than a recommended 7 inch..
But when I opened the can of cherries, the colour is totally not what I expected. So, I’ve learnt my lesson not to buy Red Man’s canned cherries. The syrup didn’t even cover the fruits! In the end, I threw in some cubed strawberries into the filling. Might be weird to have an adult looking cake with some bits of strawberries in it, but, it’s nice to have some fresh fruits in it.

And I also copycatted Hearty Bakes in the way I decorated this cake. Just hop to this post  of hers and you can see how much I copied from her. Her cakes all look so well made.

Bitter Choc Chiffon
Adapted from Hearty Bakes

Ingredients:

(A) 100g Bittersweet chocolate (chopped)
10gm butter

(B) 5 egg yolks
20g sugar

(C) 40ml water

(D) 60g Cake flour
10g black cocoa powder (it looks like charcoal powder)
1/2tsp baking powder

(E) 5 egg whites
½ tsp cream of tartar
40g sugar


Choc Ganache:
100g Whipping cream
100g Dark Chocolate

Frosting:
400gm dairy whipping cream
3 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp gelatin
1 Tbsp water
1 cup chopped strawberries



Method:

Cake
1. Sieve Cake flour with cocoa powder and baking powder. Set aside
2. Preheat oven to 170deg C
3. Double boil to melt (A). Stir till smooth
4. In another bowl, whisk (B) till pale in colour
5. Add in melted choc (A) mixture, add (C) stir till combine
6. Add in (D), fold till mixture well-mixed.
7. In another bowl, whisk whites(E) till frothy, add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks and add sugar. Whisk till stiff peaks
8. Fold gently 1/3 whites with chocolate mixture
9. Fold the balance of whites
10. Pour batter into 7" cake pan (I used 9 inch springform pan)
11. Baking time around 40mins
12. Insert skewer to check if cake is done
13. Overturn cake tin to cool cake
14. Unmould cake

Ganache
1. Break chocolate and put into a bowl.
2. Bring cream to a boil, stirring all the time, it's ready when it has small bubble on the side.
3. Pour scalded cream onto chocolate and let it sit for 1 minute.
4. Stir until smooth. Set aside.

Frosting
1. Freeze bowl for at least 15 minutes before use. If using stainless steel bowl, prepare and ice bath for use later.
2. Place water in a heat proof bowl and sprinkle gelatin onto water. Let it sit for 1 minute and melt it in the microwave(high for 30 secs) or over a hot pan of water. Let it cool down.
3. Remove frozen bowl from freezer (place in ice bath if stainless steel bowl) and pour in cold whipping cream.
4. Beat on low speed until it starts to thicken then increase to high. When cream has reached soft peaks, put in sugar and beat until almost stiff. Pour in melted gelatin and beat until stiff.
5. Use immdiately to frost.

To assemble
1. Slice cooled cake into 3 layers
2. Place 3 Tbsp of ganache over the bottom layer and spread evenly. Put 1/2 cup of cream over bottom layer and spread. Sprinkle half the strawberries over.
3. Take another piece of cake and spread 3 Tbsp of ganache and another 1/2 cup of cream. Then put the creamed layer on top of the strawberries on bottom layer.
4. Spread 3 Tbsp of ganache onto the 2nd cake layer (now on top of bottom layer) and then repeat step 2 and 3. Now you will have 3 layers of cake sandwiched with 2 layers of filling.
5. Spread more cream all over cake and freeze the cake for 10 minutes
6. Prepare a piping bag with a 3 mm plain nozzle. Pour in all the remaining ganache.
7. Remove cake from freezer and pipe ganache to cover cake sides and lastly top with Ferrero Rodnoir.
8. Chill for few hours before serving.

Verdict:
Frankly, The cake was wonderful when it was unchilled. Lovely and chocolatey. Soft and moist. But once it was chilled, the cake somehow turned dry. Maybe it was due to the melted chocolate content that made it harder when cold. But when the cake was left overnight, the moisture from the strawberries seeped into the cake, and made it much better. I strongly recommend that some sort of fruits be added into the filling to avoid the dry mouthfeel when the cake is eaten chilled.
Mike said the cake is nice, and the only thing not nice is the Ferrero Rodnoir. He told me to use Rocher next time if I ever want to use Ferreros for his cakes. The Rodnoir somehow turned chewy after being chilled for some hours.