Rachel's Devil Food Cake

By nature, I am a savoury cook; give me roast dinner for 10 over baking cupcakes any day. However, a combination of my boyfriend’s sweet tooth and my desire to master this art that has long escaped me, I’ve recently started trying to get over “the fear”. And so in this blog you will be able to see me recreating certain recipes to some disastrous consequences- although hopefully getting better. Bored of seeing fancy multi-tiered baked goods that look like they’ve been crafted by Michelangelo himself? Then come and have a laugh at my first attempts!
First off, and my boyfriends favourite; Devil’s Food Cake.

*280g Plain chocolate

*100ml milk

*50 g cocoa power

*180g unsalted butter

*140g light Muscovado sugar

*3 eggs separated

*8 tbsp Crème Fraiche

*200g plain flour

*1tbsp Golden Syrup

*1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

200g icing sugar

1.     Preheat oven to 160 Celsius; grease two 8 inch cake tins and line with non-stick baking paper. Top tip: Follow Delia’s guide to lining cake tins to ensure the edges are smooth here: Delia's how to line a cake

2.     Melt 140g chocolate with milk and 2 tbsp of cocoa powder in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of hot water until smooth. Remove from heat.

3.     Beat together 140g butter with the muscovado sugar until pale and fluffy, then beat in the egg yolks, crème fraiche and melted chocolate mixture.

4.     Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda, and then fold this into the mixture lightly and evenly.

5.     Beat the egg whites into firm peaks, and then fold this into the mixture lightly and evenly.

6.     Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and smooth level- DO NOT PRESS DOWN otherwise the cake will be too dense. Cook for 35-40 minutes.

7.     Once cooked, leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks.

For the frosting:
melt the rest of the chocolate, cocoa powder, crème fraiche, golden syrup and butter with 4 tbsp of water in a saucepan over a low heat until smooth. Remove from the heat and sift in the icing sugar, constantly stirring. Set aside to cool.

The mistake I made here was not to let it cool enough- it needs to be thick and gloopy, otherwise it will just run off the side of the cake and look messy (Like you can tell from my pictures!)

9.     Cut each cake in half horizontally, and sandwich the cakes together with some of the icing, then spread the remaining icing over the top and sides. This is easier if you have a palette knife, but if not use anything with a smooth side.

So this cake was absolutely decadent; moist, chocolatey and light. Just the presentation that needs some work I think! To mix it up, trying adding raspberry puree in the sandwiched layers, or make white chocolate icing; in these cases you can probably withhold a bit of the icing sugar as these components are sweeter.

Certainly looks like my boyfriend enjoyed it!

Recipe from The Big Book of Baking by Love Food

Rachel x