Chocolate cake: recipe with photo, ingredients and baking tips

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

The best treat in the world is chocolate. No wonder it is produced from cocoa fruits, which in Latin are called Theobroma cacao, that is, "food of the gods." Most people on the planet are avid chocolate addicts. We all love natural chocolate, chocolates and desserts. Even skin and hair care products are made with cocoa flavor.

And of course, the most delicious and fragrant basis for a festive cake are chocolate cakes. There are quite a few recipes for their preparation. Almost every housewife who is “on a short footing” with her oven knows at least one option for making a chocolate base for dessert.

If you do not have such a recipe in your arsenal, then be sure to read the article. In it, we will tell you how to make chocolate cake layers for a cake. Recipes and photos of the finished result will help you evaluate how correctly all instructions were followed.

Cocoa selection

Which ingredient isthe most important thing when making chocolate cake? If the dessert does not contain cocoa, then all the taste will be concentrated in the cream, which needs to be made as tasty as possible. Korzh in such a situation is only an accompaniment.

But when it comes to chocolate cake, everything is exactly the opposite. Most of the taste sensations from the dessert are accounted for by him. Therefore, it must be perfect - soft, airy, very delicate, with an amazing taste and aroma.

And if the texture depends more on the ability of the cook to follow the exact recipe, then the taste and smell of the dough comes from cocoa powder.

All chefs know that when preparing even a simple chocolate cake recipe, you must definitely put good cocoa powder in the dough. It is the quality of this ingredient that determines the taste of baking, so you should not save on it.

In order to understand what powder is considered good, you need to understand what kind of product it is and how it is made. Cocoa is made from cocoa beans. They are fermented, dried in the sun, and then the oil is pressed out of them. The remaining cake is the raw material for the preparation of the powder. Unfortunately, in our time in confectionery, cocoa butter is increasingly being replaced with cheaper analogues. Accordingly, demand falls and production volumes decrease. Because of this, natural powder is produced less and less. But it can still be found on store shelves. The correct cocoa powder should look like the one in the photo.

Chocolate cakes (cake recipes based on this test are verya lot) when this ingredient is added, they acquire a distinct chocolate flavor and aroma. Since it is difficult to understand all the distinctive features of a good cocoa powder from the picture, let's try to list them:

1. Color. From light to dark brown. Brown and gray powder may indicate that the product is spoiled or contains additives.
2. Structure. The powder must be homogeneous, without impurities, grains and lumps. When rubbing with fingertips, individual grains should not be felt, but a feeling of fat should appear.
3. Fragrance. Characteristic aroma of chocolate, without admixture of milky tones and vanilla.
4. Taste. Like chocolate without sugar with bitterness.

It is advisable to make sure that the product complies with GOST 108-2014 before buying. You also need to pay attention to the price. Cocoa cannot cost 30 rubles for a 100 g pack. Of course, you always want to save money. But not on this product, since cheap powder can be poured into the dough in huge quantities and still not achieve the desired concentration of chocolate flavor.

Chocolate Biscuit Cooking Secrets

There are many recipes for chocolate cake layers - both simple and rather complex, requiring certain theoretical knowledge. Some of them require repeated repetition before at least something starts to work out. One of the best bases for a cake is chocolate biscuit cake. It differs from all others in the most magnificent and delicate structure. Desserts from it will be airy and very tasty.

WhenBiscuit baking does not use baking powder or yeast. The fluffy structure is due to the pre-beating of the eggs. So all air bubbles must be contained in the dough initially.

The biscuit consists of only a few ingredients, namely:

• eggs;
• sugar;
• flour.

Sometimes starch and butter are also put in it. According to the recipe for chocolate biscuit cake, cocoa powder must be added to it. The proportions can be arbitrary, but keep in mind that this is a dry product, and it takes some of the moisture, making the base denser. Therefore, the recipes take into account this parameter and lay a little less flour than when preparing a regular biscuit.

In order for the base to have a rich chocolate flavor, as a rule, one part of cocoa powder is taken for every two parts of flour. There is another option for determining a good proportion - the mass of cocoa powder should be 10% of the mass of raw eggs. Sometimes dark chocolate bars or chocolate chips are used to make the chocolate base for the cake.

The structure of the biscuit largely depends on the freshness of the eggs. They must be at room temperature and as fresh as possible. This can be determined in two ways:

1. Put the egg in a glass of water. Fresh will sink to the bottom, usable will float in the middle, rotten will float.
2. Crack the egg and evaluate its consistency. Suitable for whipping protein keeps its shape well and does notspreads on a platter. If the protein drips, then the biscuit from such a product will not rise well.

The second way to determine the freshness of eggs is more accurate.

Preparing the test

How to make chocolate biscuit cake layers? According to the recipe, you need to start by preparing the dough. It will depend on how correctly it is done whether the biscuit will turn out or not. To get an airy and delicious cake base, you need:

1. Warm eggs to room temperature. Chilled whipped proteins often do not hold their shape well, fall off, and the biscuit settles in the oven. In addition, sugar dissolves faster in a warm environment.
2. You need to beat eggs with sugar for a long time, about 25-30 minutes. During this time, the mass should increase several times, become dense and voluminous. Initially, you need to beat at a low speed, then gradually increase it. A planetary mixer is ideal for beating eggs for biscuits.
3. Biscuits are prepared according to different recipes. One at a time, you must first separate the proteins from the yolks and beat both masses separately, and combine before baking. Along with this, the “all in one bowl” method is used, when the whites and yolks are whipped together.
4. The flour must be mixed into the egg mass very carefully, in soft circular motions, to keep as many bubbles as possible. If you knead too vigorously, the dough will fall off and the biscuit will be flat. Kneading time - no more than 15-20 seconds.
5. Flour and cocoa must be sifted.
6. Don't keep the dough outside for too long or shake it. Afteronce it is laid out in the form, it must be sent to the oven.

Chocolate Biscuit Baking

Baking a biscuit is a rather complicated process. At this stage, it is easy to spoil the dough by over- or under-exposing it in the oven. When preparing chocolate biscuit cake, the dough must be sent to the oven as soon as it is laid out in molds. Do it like this:

• Prepare molds. Usually these are standard baking dishes with a diameter of 20-22 cm. But you can use any. The bottom of the form is lined with parchment (baking paper), high sides must be greased with butter.
• Fill out the form. Usually filled to 2/3 of the height of the side, so that the biscuit has room to rise. If you do not leave him free space, he will partially run away from the form.
• Smooth the dough. This is a delicate operation, as the dough cannot be influenced too much. But it is still necessary to level it, otherwise the biscuit will turn out uneven or cracked.
• Place the mold in a well-heated oven. Temperature regime 180-200 ⁰С.
• Do not open the oven or move the molds for at least the first 10 minutes from the start of baking.

Excerpt

So how do you make delicious chocolate cake layers? According to the recipe, the dough should stay in the oven for at least 20 minutes, but sometimes it takes all 40. It all depends on the specific recipe and the size of the form. Biscuits on flat baking sheetsreach readiness very quickly. A large and tall pie can stand for about an hour. So you have to determine the degree of readiness in appearance.

The main problem with chocolate cakes is that they are already brown. So you can't go by color. You will have to pierce the dough with a wooden toothpick in the old fashioned way: if it is clean, then the pastries are ready, if there is a wet mark, then you need to wait further. Modern confectioners use a special thermometer: they measure the temperature in the middle of the biscuit and are guided by its readings.

You can see how the baked chocolate cakes should look like in the photo.

Recipe with a detailed description of the whole process can be found below.

After the base is ready, it must be properly cooled before assembling the dessert. If you abruptly remove the biscuit from the oven, it may fall, so the cakes are cooled like this:

1. Turn off the oven and let the cake stand for another 4-5 minutes. Do not open the door!
2. Open the door a little (make a small gap) so that the temperature drops gradually. Wait another 4-5 minutes.
3. Take out the mold and let the biscuit cool right in it. 25-30 minutes is enough for this.
4. Remove the biscuit from the mold. There is no need to remove the parchment yet, as the cake should still “ripen”.
5. The base reaches its ideal state in 8-10 hours. That is, it is advisable to bake a biscuit on the eve of the day the dessert is assembled. During the exposure time, the cake becomes more durable, it will not crumble, while itstay soft and airy. The parchment paper will keep the edges from drying out, so remove it only before soaking and assembling.

Impregnation

Some gourmets find chocolate cakes too dry. In order for them to become more moist and juicy, they are watered with a special impregnation. It penetrates all pores and adds softness and sometimes extra flavor to the base.

How to soak chocolate cake layers? There are quite a few recipes for impregnation, but orange and cognac are best combined with chocolate, so you need to cook like this:

1. Take 250 g of sugar and 250 ml of water. Mix.
2. Boil, then cool to room temperature.
3. Add 50 g cognac, orange essence or fresh orange zest.

You can also use vanilla or almond essence, dessert wine, Madeira or rum. You can also add any juices, natural coffee, liquor.

Pour the biscuit with the resulting impregnation so that it is completely saturated. It is important not to overdo it and not to wet the foundation too much. In addition, the impregnation should not clog the chocolate flavor of the biscuit.

Baking a biscuit

To make a biscuit, you can use the simplest recipe. Chocolate cake layers will still turn out to be unusually tender and tasty.

List of ingredients:

• chicken eggs, fresh, warmed to room temperature - 5 pcs.;
• fine-grained sugar - 1 cup (250 ml);
• high grade flour - 1glass (250 ml);
• good quality cocoa powder - two large spoons.

In addition, you will need a round form with a diameter of 25-28 cm or any other with approximately the same area and high sides, as well as parchment and butter for greasing.

This is what the finished chocolate cake looks like in the photo.

The recipe is very simple:

1. Take two bowls deep enough for whisking. They must be clean and completely dry.
2. Wash the eggs, wipe them dry. Separate whites from yolks. If the whites have yellow inclusions, they will not whip.
3. Add a pinch of s alt to the proteins and beat with a whisk or a mixer.
4. Add half the sugar to the whites. Beat well until a thick dense foam with stable peaks is formed.
5. Take a second bowl, put the yolks and sugar into it. Beat until the crystals disappear completely. The mass will become light and dense.
6. Take one glass of flour. From this amount, remove two tablespoons of the product and add cocoa powder. If you need a biscuit with a more pronounced chocolate flavor, then cocoa can be added a little more, similarly replacing an equivalent amount of flour.
7. Mix yolks and whites in gentle circular motions.
8. Pour dry ingredients and carefully combine all products into a homogeneous mass. It is important not to stir too long so that the dough does not fall off.
9. Put the mass into the mold, smooth and bake.

We have already described further actions. This chocolate cake recipe is considered prettysimple, although it is quite easy to mess up at almost any stage of cooking.

For those who don't want to mess with the whimsical and delicate biscuit, there are other options. For example, you can cook delicious chocolate cake layers according to recipes that involve the use of baking powder. Such a component gives a more stable result, and the basis for the dessert rises in any case. To do this, just remember to put baking powder in the dough or remember to “extinguish” the baking soda with any acidic environment. However, errors are possible here as well. If there is not enough baking powder, the dough will rise poorly, and the cake will be flat and dense. If you put a lot, then a characteristic soda flavor will be felt in the dessert, and the dessert will taste like soap.

Moist chocolate cake layers

The recipe for this cake base is quite simple. At the same time, it turns out to be very tender and airy, but strong enough so that the cake does not fall apart during assembly. To prepare a wet chocolate cake for the cake according to the recipe of Alina Akhmadiyeva, the following ingredients are needed:

• Good Quality Cocoa Powder - 150g
• Premium flour - 300g
• Sugar fine-grained - 350 g.
• Baking soda - 2 teaspoons.
• Cooking s alt - one teaspoon.
• large fresh eggs - 3 pcs
• Heated water - 135 ml.
• Kefir (aged 2-3 days) - 240 ml.
• Odorless vegetable oil - 100 ml.
• Vanillin or vanilla sugar - 2 g or one sachet.

Howlooks like this culinary masterpiece can be seen in the photo below.

Chocolate cake recipe step by step - next:

1. Mix dry ingredients, except baking powder and vanillin, in a deep bowl. Sift flour and cocoa beforehand.
2. Pour kefir into a separate bowl and add baking powder to it. Alkaline soda will react with sour kefir and thick fluffy foam will appear.
3. Stir eggs, hot water and oil into kefir. When using a mixer, use the low speed setting. Add vanilla.
4. Without ceasing to stir, add the dry mass in small portions. Knead until smooth.
5. Prepare the molds - grease their sides with butter, and put baking paper on the bottom.
6. Send to preheated oven at 180⁰C.

Air cake

This is a chocolate cake recipe using dark chocolate. To prepare it, you will need the following ingredients:

• black bitter chocolate - 50 g;
• large fresh eggs - 4 pcs;
• hot water - 4 large spoons;
• fine-grained sugar - 50 g;
• vanillin - 2 g;
• high grade flour - 75g;
• corn starch - 75 g;
• Baking powder or slaked soda - 2 small spoons.

Procedure:

1. Mix flour, starch and baking powder.
2. Melt the chocolate bar in a water bath.
3. Separate the yolks from the whites.
4. Whip the whites into a thickfoam.
5. Beat the yolks with vanilla and sugar.
6. Pour chocolate into yolks. Shuffle.
7. Mix a third of the whipped egg whites into the chocolate mixture.
8. Add dry ingredients to the yolks in portions, put the remaining proteins. Stir in gentle circular motions.
9. Preheat the oven to 200 ⁰С.
10. Put the dough into the prepared form, smooth it out, send it to the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

This chocolate cake recipe has exact proportions and must be followed. In order to accurately measure sugar, flour and starch, you need to use a scale. You can not replace corn starch with potato starch. These are different products with different properties. It is corn starch that is used in baking.

Chess Cake

When buying a finished cake on the cut, you can see a “chess” cake when dark and light areas alternate. Many people love this fun effect, but they don't realize that it's easy to replicate at home. To do this, you need to bake two round cakes of the same diameter: regular, light, and dark - chocolate. Then, if it is a biscuit, it needs to be allowed to "ripen" so that it holds its shape better. Others refrigerate enough. After that, you can start cutting and assembling.

Chess cake is very easy to prepare:

1. Each cake should be divided into three parts (more possible), as in the photo below.

2. Then you need to collect the cakes in the reverse order: insert the dark core into the middle light circle and connect to the largedark circle. Repeat the same with another cake.

3. Assemble the cake, decorate.

As a result, clear "chess" cubes will be obtained on the cut. For cutting, you can use special tin rings or a metal mold. If they are not there, then you can cut it out with a knife according to a cardboard template.

Ready-made cakes with chocolate flavor

Time for full-fledged baking is sometimes not enough. However, sometimes the hands are asked to cook something tasty and chocolate-pre-chocolate. We bring to your attention a recipe for chocolate cake with ready-made cakes. For its preparation you will need:

• classic biscuits - 300 g;
• butter - 150 g;
• good quality cocoa powder - 4 large heaping spoons;
• soft cream cheese - 250 g;
• powdered sugar - two bags (100 g);
• dark chocolate bars - 200g;
• chilled fat cream (at least 32% fat content) – 200g

How to cook:

1. Melt the butter in a water bath.
2. Cookies grind into a homogeneous crumb.
3. Mix crumbs, butter and cocoa powder.
4. Whipping chilled cream with a spoonful of powdered sugar.
5. Put cling film on the bottom of the mold. Pour in the butter and cookie mixture. Smooth out. Refrigerate.
6. Whip soft cheese with powdered sugar.
7. Melt the chocolate in a water bath. Refrigerate, but so that it remains liquid. Stir with cheese.
8. Add cream to the chocolate cream. Knead in gentle circular motions to keep the cream fluffy.
9. Put the cream on the cookie crust and smooth it out. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, but overnight is best.
10. Get the cake out of the fridge. Garnish with berries, marshmallows, fruit, candies or chocolate chips.

Cream

How to make cream for chocolate cakes? There are not just a lot of recipes for their preparation, but a lot. We bring to your attention a few of them.

Sour cream

You need to take fat sour cream - 400 g (fat content above 25%), cool it and beat with a glass of fine-grained sugar and a pinch of vanillin. The result should be a dense, not too sweet cream with a slight lactic acidity.

Cherry

Chocolate and cherry is a union blessed in heaven. This combination will delight both the eye and all the olfactory and taste buds. Cherry cream is prepared like this:

• 100 g fresh or frozen pitted cherries mashed;
• 200 g of soft butter beat with 150 g of fine-grained sugar until the grains dissolve;
• add berry puree to the butter cream in small portions and continue to beat, the result should be a pink delicate butter cream with cherry flavor and aroma.

Custard from condensed milk

This is a classic combination of flavors - delicate milk cream with a bright chocolate biscuit. Custard is prepared like this:

• Dissolve two tablespoons of sugar in one glass of milk, and dissolve two tablespoonsflour. Put the mixture on fire and heat.
• Cook on a very low heat, stirring constantly, otherwise everything will burn and the taste will deteriorate.
• Beat 100 g of soft butter with boiled condensed milk.
• Add condensed milk butter to chilled milk mixture.
• Beat until you get a dense and homogeneous cream.

Whipped cream

This is a classic of the genre. This cream is suitable for absolutely all cakes, including chocolate ones. To prepare, you need to take 500 ml of fresh chilled cream and beat it with 150 g of powdered sugar.

Cook delicious and fun!