Week 11: Death by Chocolate Cake

Welcome back for Week 11!

I was very excited for this week because I tried my hand at making my favorite ice cream flavor in cake form – a Death by Chocolate Cake!

Death by chocolate is the ultimate chocolate concoction. It usually has a chocolate base (either milk or dark) and is accompanied by multiple chocolate accoutrements that could include chocolate fudge, chocolate syrup, chocolate frosting/icing, chocolate ganache, you name it! A blissful overindulgence in chocolate is the goal with a death by chocolate concoction.

Now that I’ve (hopefully) grabbed your attention and got your mouths watering, let’s get to it!

There were a few things in this recipe that I figured I’d touch on. First, this recipe didn’t want me to use an electric mixer. It specifically said to measure out the ingredients in a bowl and then use a wooden spoon to mix it together. I don’t usually use wooden spoons, for anything really, so thankfully I had some on hand (I’m sure it’d be totally fine if you used a plastic or metal spoon, but I just wanted to follow the recipe as closely as I could).

Another thing I’d like to point out is that this recipe called for golden syrup. Now, from what I could tell, golden syrup is not easily found in the US, so it’s a good thing that there are some substitutes. I followed the advice I found here. This website discussed not only the possible differences in flavor, but also texture, which I thought was a lot of help when figuring out which substitute I wanted to use. I ended up going with light corn syrup (see the exact kind here).

I also realized as I reached for my self-rising flour that this recipe actually called for all-purpose flour! This was the first recipe in this book that didn’t call for self-rising, so I figured that might help with my cake sinking problem! I still did decrease the amount of baking powder and baking soda from 1 ½ teaspoons each to ½ teaspoon each just in case.

One last thing to note is that this recipe also called for sunflower oil (remember, the Week 7 Carrot Cake also called for this). Just like last time, I used corn oil as a substitute.

Alrighty, so, after I finished mixing with the wooden spoon, I eyeballed half of the mixture into each baking tin. This recipe does use cocoa powder, and I don’t know if it’s just me, but when I use cocoa powder in recipes, the batter always ends up tasting like cocoa powder, not chocolate… if that makes sense ha-ha!

The recipe calls for 35 minutes in the oven, and I first checked them at 25 minutes. They were still way too liquid-y, and it ended up being a total of 33 minutes. Guess what folks? THEY DIDN’T SINK! Yay!!

The recipe says to cut each cake in half horizontally once they’ve fully cooled, but because my cakes were a little thin, I ended up just leaving them as they were.

Making the icing involved a double boiler technique again, like week 8 with the Frosted Walnut Layer Cake. This one was a little easier though, considering you just melt the chocolate in the double boiler (I just used chocolate chips again) and then add butter to it. There’s no whisking involved, so considering how the frosting turned out in week 8, I was glad to see that wasn’t part of the deal this week!

Next time, I’d probably cut the butter into smaller pieces before I add it to the melted chocolate. The chocolate cooled a little faster than I expected, so I ended up having to put the bowl back onto the double boiler for another minute or so to make sure all the butter had melted.

Overall, I’d give this bake a solid 5/5! The cake turned out wonderfully! It had a rich chocolatey flavor, nice moist texture, and the frosting was heavenly (which can be expected from melted chocolate and butter!). It’s definitely an overindulgence of chocolate, but man oh man do you want to keep eating more! I would even serve this a la mode with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

I highly, highly recommend this recipe to anyone who wants to add a little extra chocolatey goodness to their birthday party, bridal shower, potluck dinner, or just their daily snack repertoire! This is hands down my favorite recipe yet (and not just because everything happened as it was supposed to)!

Well everyone, that’s it for week 11, the Death by Chocolate Cake! Thank you for following along with me, and, again, if you have any questions, feel free to use the “Get in Touch” feature on my “About Me” page and subscribe to get updates on posts!

See you next week!