Chocolate lovers know there’s nothing quite like a good slice of gooey chocolate cake.
When we asked around for the best chocolate cake recipe, we were pleasantly surprised to find an amazing baker who was seated in our office itself. So, we asked Denise Holmes, our Senior Merchandiser at Roy’s Boys, what her go-to recipe for the best chocolate cake was. And guess what? We love it!
What if we told you there was another variant to the traditional chocolate cake that your kids would love? We are talking about a red velvet chocolate cake!
This red velvet cake is not only easy to bake with your kids, but it is also beginner-friendly. So whether it's your kid's first time baking, the recipe would be a piece of cake for you and them. Well, quite literally!
So, here’s the recipe from Denise for your next baking hit!
Photo by Marta Dzedyshko
Prep time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hr 10 minutes
Total time: About 2 hours, with added time for cooling and setting.
Ingredients
350g plain flour
200g salted butter at room temperature and some extra for greasing
2 ½ tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sodium bicarbonate/baking soda
¼ tsp fine sea salt
375g granulated sugar/caster sugar
3 eggs
1½ tsp vanilla extract
284ml buttermilk
30g red food colour (gel preferably)
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
To make the cream cheese filling you will need:
120g soft cheese of choice
120g salted butter at room temperature
120g icing sugar
Electric beater
To make the chocolate icing, you will need:
300ml double cream of choice
250g dark chocolate (regular chocolate with 70% cocoa or good quality cooking chocolate), roughly chopped
1½ tbsp glucose syrup or liquid glucose
50g white or milk chocolate, roughly chopped
Now that you have all your ingredients ready, it is time to start the baking process.
- Preheat the oven to 170˚C and keep ready. In the meantime, grease the base and sides of a 23cm springform cake tin and line with baking parchment.
- In a bowl, take all the dry ingredients except sugar and sift them together. Set it aside.
- Using the electric beater, mix the butter and sugar for 1 minute until it is creamy.
- Now, slowly add the eggs, one at a time, making sure they are mixed well after each added egg. Next, add the vanilla extract to the mix.
- Once the above is done, add a quarter of the dry ingredients and beat well. Add one-third of the buttermilk and repeat until the ingredients are well blended.
- Later, combine the white vinegar and red food colouring together, and beat into the mix.
- Once done, take your cake tin, pour the above in and spread until it's even. Now, gently tap the tin on a hard flat surface to remove any air bubbles that may have been formed while scraping the mixture into the tin.
Good job so far; this completes the first part of the process.
- Next, bake, ideally for an hour. You can check at intervals if the cake’s cooked by inserting a skewer into the centre. If the inserted skewer comes clean before an hour, you can remove the cake tin from the oven.
- Take a wire rack and place the hot tin on it. Let it completely cool down.
- While your cake cools down, you can start working on the filling.
- You will need your electric beaters to beat the butter, soft cheese, and icing sugar until smooth. Your filling is now ready.
- Once the cake has cooled off, remove it from the tin. Using the serrated knife, cut horizontally into three even layers.
- Now take the bottom layer of the cut cake and place it on a baking sheet. Spread half of the filling you just made and layer it on top of the cake. Adding the second cake layer of the cake above the filling, spread the other half of the filling. Finish by adding the final layer of cake.
- Once done, carefully refrigerate your cake and let is sit for 20 to 35 minutes.
You will need to start working on the icing for the third part of the process.
- To make the icing, first melt the cream, chocolate, and glucose syrup together in a non-stick double boiler set over a pan of boiling water. Make sure the bowl’s base doesn’t touch the water.
- Now, melt the white or milk chocolate in another bowl using the same method and pour it into a small piping bag. If you like, you can make two piping bags, one with white and the other with milk chocolate, for variety.
For the fourth part:
- Take your cake from the fridge.
- Now place it onto a wire rack over a tray to get the chocolate drips and to avoid the mess on the countertop. Make sure to place the flat surface of the cake facing upwards for icing.
- Once ready, quickly pour the dark chocolate icing over the cake's centre and evenly cover the entire cake. Using long strokes of a palette knife, gently spread the icing well over the sides.
- In the last part, give the white or milk chocolate piping bag(s) to your kids and let them design the pattern and effects they’d like on their red velvet chocolate cake.
- Lastly, let the icing set for about 20 to 35 minutes.
Photo by Any Lane