Chocolate Mud Cake

Any long term readers of this blog will know I love chocolate. So when I saw Ellie's Chocolate Mud Cake recipe, I had to try it out. I've made many different recipe chocolate cakes before but hadn't done a mud cake yet.

This cake was really easy to make. The resultant cake is indeed an extremely rich chocolate cake. When combined with a chocolate ganache frosting (I used a slightly different ratio of chocolate to cream for the ganache compared to Ellie), it is chocolate heaven. I gave some to another chocolate cake lover and he said it was excellent. Strangely, this cake really does get better with time as Ellie mentioned. When you first make it, it is not as moist or dense yet. But after leaving in the fridge for 2-3 days, it becomes this dense moist rich cake. So I too suggest you try to leave it for a few days before eating, if you can resist.



Chocolate Mud Cake

Ingredients

Cake
200g butter, chopped
200g good quality dark cooking chocolate, chopped
30g cocoa powder, sifted
2 tbsp instant coffee powder
60ml (1/4) cup water
1 tsp vanilla essence
220g caster sugar
3 eggs (room temperature)
115g self-raising flour, sifted

Ganache
100g good quality dark cooking chocolate, roughly chopped
120ml thick cream

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Line cake tin with baking paper.

2. Combine butter, chocolate, cocoa, coffee powder, water & vanilla essence in a medium saucepan. Whisk over low heat till smooth & well combined. Set aside mixture till it is lukewarm.

3. Beat sugar & egg together till pale and creamy. Slowly add the lukewarm chocolate mix whilst continually beating with an electric hand whisk, then add the flour and beat till combined and the mixture is light and fluffy.

4. Pour mix into prepared cake tin and bake for 55 mins, or till a skewer inserted into the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it.

5. Set cake out to cool in tin for 15, then remove from cake tin and turn on a wire rack to cool completely.

6. To make ganache, combine chocolate and cream in heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (water should not touch bottom of bowl). Stir occasionally, till mixture is melted and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside for around an hour, stirring occasionally till it has cooled and thickened to a spreadable consistency.

7. Spread ganache over cooled cake.