Chocolate Overload Birthday Cake

posted by joeli under cake

I have a little problem with birthday cakes--I always seem to ruin them somehow. Last year I tried to make a cheesecake and a lemon meringue pie and both turned out soupy. The year before I tried to make a yellow cake from scratch and it came out awful. But somehow, this year, I managed to do okay (barely). It took seven hours, a kilo of chocolate, 3 cups of cream and so many dirty dishes that I had to fill the washing up bowl three times, but I did it. I present to you the super duper chocolate overload birthday cake.

This cake is made of three different layers--a brownie base on the bottom, chocolate mousse in the middle, and chocolate cake on the top. Then the whole thing is then covered with chocolate ganache. It took me ages to make and I had to redo the brownie base because it broke when I was trying to get it out of the pan. It was worth it though and I'm kind of sad that it's all gone. Not sad enough to make it again though. Although I have made the brownie recipe again and they turned out delicious. But that's for another post.

This cake is extremely rich and one person described it as "a taste sensation". My husband and I both have a major sweet tooth and can devour a pan of brownies in under 10 minutes. When I showed my husband the cake he thought he would be able to eat at least a quarter of it that night, but this was not so. However, we were both surprised at how long this cake lasted. The recipe says it serves 12-16 but we got way more than that out of this cake. I'd say more like 24 servings. It lasted a week and was still just as tasty on that last day.

The recipe is from here. It was easy to follow and if I can make this cake without screwing it up then I'm sure you can too. My only problem was with the ganache. I had a hard time finding the right medium between too soft to hold it's shape and too hard to squeeze out the icing bag.

Overall, I'd say if you have a day free to bake and you want to knock someone's socks off then try this cake, at least once. Then you can decide whether it's worth it. Personally, I'd probably make it again...in a few years. If you don't feel like tackling the whole cake then I'd at least recommend making the brownies and/or the cake parts. They were both delicious.

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