Chocolate Truffle Cake

I recently hosted a Murder Mystery Bookalokal Dinner party – and have a tendency to try out new dessert recipes on the guests… 99% of the time, it is a cheesecake of some sort. But this time, I decided to do something different… and found a gorgeous Chocolate Truffle Cake Recipe on the BBC Good Food Website.

However – I never anticipated the amount of time required for making this (with cake cooling, 2 different ganaches, etc) plus holding… so I adapted the recipe somewhat – and decided not to make my own chocolate stars (as they describe) and rather decorated with store-bought truffles & berries instead.

This cake is SUPER moist and SUPER sweet – and has the texture of a mousse cake… Plus – it keeps beautifully in the fridge/freezer (without icing) – so it can be made up to a week or 2 in advance!! In fact – this dessert was made over the course of 2 days – with day 1 making/baking the cake, then cooling & freezing (to make it easier to slice) and day 2 was making the ganaches & icing.

Obviously, my dessert looks nowhere as gorgeous and picture perfect as the image on the website – but I can tell you that this is going to be a ‘make-again” kind of dessert – as it elicited “ooohs” & “aahs” from more than 1 person. (Even HIM, who got to savour the last slice when he got home from work, declared it a winner – but not before pointing out that it could still be sweeter (something I wasn’t sure was possible)).

Chocolate truffle cake

140g Dark chocolate (plus 50g for ganache)
140g Butter (cut into pieces)
2 teaspoons coffee granules
50g Self-raising flour
50g plain flour
¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
280g sugar
1 ½ Tablespoons cocoa powder
2 medium eggs
3 Tablespoons soured cream
50g white chocolate
200ml double cream
2 ½ Tablespoons boiling water
2 Tablespoons golden caster sugar
5-6 small chocolate truffles
Berries for decoration

• The cake is best made a day ahead (making it easier to slice & fill & giving the stars time to set)
• Mix coffee with 50ml water & pour into a saucepan with dark chocolate (140g) & butter
• Warm through over a low heat, just to melt – be careful not to overheat
• While chocolate melt, mix both flours with the bicarbonate of soda, sugar & cocoa in a large bowl
• Beat eggs, then stir in the soured cream
• Pour eggs & melted chocolate into dry ingredients
• Stir everything together (mixture will be soft)
• Pour into a greased loaf tin
• Bake at 160C for 1 ½ hours (or until firm on top)
• Let the cake cool in the tin & then carefully turn onto a wire rack to cool completely
• For the white chocolate icing, heat 100ml double cream just to boiling
• Remove from heat & tip in the white chocolate (50g) and swirl so that it starts to melt
• Add 1 tablespoon boiling water and stir to melt completely
• Pour into a small bowl and chill in the fridge for 1hr to cool & thicken
• Beat with an electric hand mixer until thick & glossy
• When cake is completely cold, place it into the fridge to chill (making it easier to slice)
• Take the cake out of the fridge & turn it so that the flat base becomes the top of the cake
• Slice cake horizontally into 3
• Sandwich back together with the white chocolate icing
• For the dark chocolate icing, heat 100ml cream with 2 tablespoons of sugar to just boiling
• Remove from the heat and add 25g finely chopped dark chocolate
• Stir in 1 ½ Tablespoons boiling water
• Leave to cool & thicken a little
• Put the cake on a wire rack with the parchment paper underneath (to catch drips)
• Pour & spread the icing all over the cake
• Leave to set slightly & then arrange truffles/berries on the top

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