Ingredients for cake
115g unsalted butter
115g plain flour
55g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 eggs
225g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
Ingredients for icing
225g plain chocolate
85g unsalted butter
3 eggs, separated
250ml whipping cream
3 tablespoons caster sugar
Method
1. Preheat oven at 180 degrees celcius and prepare 2 or 3 8inch round tins with grease/oil/butter. (2 or 3 tins depending on number of layers you want.)
2. Melt butter over low heat and skim off any surface foam. Leave the melted butter aside.
3. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt 3 times and set aside.
4. Place eggs, sugar in a large heatproof bowl. Set this bowl over a pan of hot water. With an electric mixer, beat until the mixture doubles in volume and is thick enough to leave a ribbon trail when beater is lifted. Add in vanilla essence.
5. Sift over the dry ingredients in 3 batches and fold in slowly. Then fold in the butter.
6. Divide the mixture between the tins and bake until cake pulls away from the sides of the tin, about 25 minutes. Let it rest on a cooling rack.
7. For the icing, melt the chocolate on top of a double boiler. Off the heat after chocolate is melted then stir in butter and egg yolks. Return to a low heat and stir until thick. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
8. Whip the cream until firm, set aside. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Add the sugar and beat until glossy.
9. Fold the cream into the chocolate mixture. Make sure the chocolate mixture is NOT hot. Then carefully fold in the egg whites. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes to thicken the icing.
10. Sandwich the cake layers with icing, stacking them carefully.
What‘s On My Mind…
This cake is really troublesome to make in my opinion, but when done right, it just tastes heavenly. The icing melts so remember to refrigerate the cake. If you are storing the cake, I would suggest covering the cake completely with the icing so the cake will not dry out overnight.
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