Devil’s Food Cake with Chocolate Ganache
The Thanksgiving turkey flew by in a cranberry scented breeze, and Santa Clause is peeking just around the corner.
This year, don’t fret over frenzied dashes to checkout counter, and those pesky holiday pounds. Instead, cherish those precious few vacation days with the most important people in your life, and give thanks for good health, unconditional love, and lifelong friendship.
How do we at Pantry No. 7 say “thank you” and “I love you” to our amazing families and friends? Through their stomachs, of course!
For our loved ones, we like to whip up Devil’s food chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and meringue frosting. This recipe makes rich, dark, moist chocolate cake, with incredible depth of flavor that’s not too sweet. Topped with decadent, silky chocolate ganache and snowy toasted meringue frosting, the cake is a little piece of heaven. One bite of this rich, dark, and moist chocolate cake and you too, will be floating on cloud nine.
Makes 9 cupcakes or two 6 inch cakes
Dry Ingredients
170g (1 1/3 cups) of flour
45g (1/2 cup) of cocoa powder
1/2 tsp of baking powder
2 tsp of baking soda
3/4 tsp of salt
Wet Ingredients
285g (1 1/2 cups) of sugar
2 eggs
180g (3/4 cup) buttermilk
70g (1/3 cup) of olive oil
2 tsp of vanilla extract
180g (3/4 cup) of coffee at room temperature
Meringue Frosting
150g (5) egg whites
190g (1 cup) sugar
Pinch of salt
2 tsp of vanilla extract
8oz of semi-sweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
1 tbsp of unsalted butter at room temp
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients and set aside. Whisk all wet ingredients together. Once well combined, sift dry ingredients into wet ingredients. If making cupcakes, divide batter into individual liners. If you are using a cupcake tin, put the cupcake tin over another baking sheet, to ensure that the cupcakes don’t come out dry. Bake for 15 minutes for cupcakes and 30 -40 minutes for 9 inch cake.
While cupcakes are cooling, prepare the chocolate ganache. Place chocolate in a medium bowl and set aside. In a small pot, bring heavy cream to a simmer. Pour hot cream over the chocolate and mix until well combined. Add butter and continue to stir. The ganache should be a little runny, so the cake can soak it up like a sponge.
Once cupcakes are cool, use a small spoon (a grapefruit or coffee spoon works best) cut out a deep hole in the middle of the cupcake. Remove the center piece entirely (you will plug it back in after filling the cupcake). Fill the cupcake with approximately 2 tbsp of ganache, and add back the piece of cake that you removed.
Set cupcakes aside and make the meringue frosting. Fill a medium sauce pot 1/3 of the way with water and bring to a simmer. In a Kitchen Aid mixer, combine sugar, egg whites and salt. Place bowl over the medium sauce pot and whisk until mixture feels warm to the touch. Doing this will ensure the sugar is completely dissolved and any existing bacteria in the egg white is killed. Make sure the water in your pot is not touching the bottom of the Kitchen Aid bowl. If it is, remove some water from the pot. Once mixture is warm, remove from pot and place bowl on stand mixer with the whisk attachment, and whisk until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla when stiff peaks start to form and whisk on high until smooth and shiny.
Spoon large dollops of meringue on the cupcakes, and torch lightly. Be careful not to burn the meringue by torching for too long, as that can happen fairly quickly.
*Recipe from The Gourmandise School
Written and photographed by Tracy Chow & Jennifer Yu
