FOOD FRIDAY - DEVIL'S FOOD CAKE

“Let’s face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.” - Audrey Hepburn
 

It’s cold, wet and wintry in Melbourne. What better remedy than a rich moist chocolate cake?
 

Devil’s Food Cake
Ingredients
 

For cake:
50 g sifted cocoa powder
125 g brown sugar
250 ml boiling water
130 g soft unsalted butter
150 g caster sugar
225 g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 vanilla bean
3 small eggs (or 2 large)
 

For icing:
125 ml water
50 g brown sugar
175 g unsalted butter (cubed)
300 g dark chocolate (finely chopped)
 

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line the bottoms of two 20cm round sandwich tins with baking paper and grease the bottom and sides.
Put the cocoa and brown sugar into a bowl and pour in the boiling water. Whisk to mix, then set aside.
Cream the butter and caster sugar together, beating well until light and fluffy.
While the butter is creaming, stir the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate together in another bowl, and set aside for a moment.
Scrape the vanilla bean interior into the creamed butter and sugar – mixing all the while – then drop in 1 egg, quickly followed by a scoopful of flour mixture, then the second egg, more flour and then the other egg.
Keep mixing and incorporate the rest of the dry ingredients for the cake, then finally mix and fold in the cocoa mixture, scraping its bowl well with a spatula.
Divide the chocolate batter between the 2 prepared tins and put in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Take the tins out and leave them on a wire rack for 5–10 minutes, before turning the cakes out to cool.
As soon as the cakes are in the oven, make the icing: Put the water, 30g brown sugar and 175 g butter in a pan over a low heat to melt.
When this mixture begins to bubble, take the pan off the heat and add the chopped chocolate, swirling the pan so that all the chocolate is heated, then leave for a minute to melt before whisking till smooth and glossy.
Leave for about 1 hour, whisking now and again, by which time the cakes will be cooled, and ready for the icing.
Set one of the cooled cakes, with its top side down, on a cake stand or plate, and spread with about a third of the icing, then top that with the second cake, regular way up, and spread the remaining icing over the top and sides, in swirling patterns.
 

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,

and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.