SHF#11 - Double Layer Chocolate Cake

I cannot help but want to participate in Sugar High Fridays. It is the baker-wannabe in me to pounce on every opportunity to get my hands dirty with flour, eggs and sugar.

Now into the 11th edition, the must-have ingredient is coffee, as chosen by host Ronald of Love Sicily. But I was so busy for the past week I had to abandon my initial choice of the Opera and made the Double Chocolate Layer Cake instead. I had printed and kept that recipe for ages and long forgotten about it until I read about it again, on Lex Culinaria.

As the recipe calls for more than a cup of coffee so I thought I may just as well use it to make the cake and bring the tempting and deliciously-sinful-looking cake to my lucky bunch of college friends this evening. But the frosting recipe that came along with it sounded extremely rich so I chose to use this instead.

Keeping in mind the preference of most Singaporeans, I reduced the sugar by 1/2 a cup. From experience, Singaporeans tend to scrape off most of the frosting (crazy I say!) anyway so I wanted to reduce the recipe. But I sort of messed up a little and the frosting was very watery. To save it, I added cocoa powder and more icing sugar to compensate. I do not know how it would turn out tomorrow but it sure was good then - I had to stop myself from licking the frosting bowl clean! And I must also apologize for the grainy picture; my phone was acting up just now but I shall be updating this post with more pictures, whole and sliced, by tomorrow latest. I promise, so stay tuned! (to be continued..)

Ok the revealing moment. In general, non food critics thought the cake was more of a dark chocolate cake and it was well-received though all of them could not relate to the frosting. They thought the frosting was too sugary and failed to complement the sponge.

In my opinion, the addition of coffee really enhanced the resulting deep dark color. The cake layer was delicious on its own, slightly dense but wonderfully moist; it borders gingerly between a cake and a brownie.

I have to admit the frosting did taste very sandy, much to my dismal. The irony is, I do not think the cake could stand on its own. Frosting adds a much needed dimension to the overall enjoyment of the cake so I could find myself cutting up a bit of cake and scrapping a bit of frosting before each spoonful went into my mouth.

Overall, it was still good cake and the great company I had elevated my enjoyment. Of course, I will be first to admit, there is definitely room for improvement. Things I would do differently in future: I will continue to cut back on the sugar content in the cake by 1 whole cup and while I would not write off the frosting recipe, because in most likelihood, it was due to my own experimenting, I would probably try another not-so-rich ganache topping the next time. For good old butter-based frosting, only God knows how I long to find a good recipe for a creamy and smooth frosting and it seems like my search is not over yet.