This decadent black velvet cake is very chocolatey and makes for a delicious birthday or celebration cake. If you’re a chocolate lover as I am, this is a cake for you. The colour of the cake is naturally quite dark thanks to good quality cocoa so there’s no need to add black food colouring. I also reduced the amount of sugar. This produced a well-balanced cake, without the sickly sweetness that often comes with birthday cakes.
Ingredients for the cake:
- 100g butter
- 150g dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa)
- 80g either sunflower or rapeseed oil (choose the one with less intense flavour)
- 150g brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 220g flour
- 1tsp baking powder
- 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 50g good quality cocoa
- 280g buttermilk
- pinch of salt
Cream cheese frosting:
- 420g cream cheese
- 200g icing sugar
- 160g butter
- 1tbs vanilla paste or extract
- 1 tbs lemon juice
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 170°C. Melt the butter over a low flame, remove it from the heat source and add the chocolate. Stir until melted completely and let it cool to room temperature. Place sugar into a large bowl and sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Whisk the eggs until light and pale and add them to the dry ingredients. Stir in the oil, buttermilk and the cooled chocolate mixture. I used a 20cm cake tin, greased and lined with baking parchment. Bake for around 45-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Set aside to cool completely. Level the top of the cake with either a cake leveler or a knife and cut the cake into three even layers.
Cream cheese frosting: If your cream cheese is wet, use a paper towel to remove any water droplets. The butter should be soft and at room temperature but not so warm as to lose its shape. Start by creaming the butter for 2 to 3 minutes with an electric mixer until it’s light and fluffy. Slowly and on a lower speed add the sugar. Using a whisk or wooden spoon (you can overbeat it with electric mixer and make it runny) add the cream cheese, vanilla and lemon juice. The frosting should have a thick consistency and not easily fall off the spoon.
Scoop about 2 heaped tablespoons of frosting onto each layer and leave the rest of the frosting for the top and sides of the cake. Apply a crumb coat, which is a thin layer of frosting that covers the sides and top of the cake and put the cake in the refrigerator for a minimum of 10 minutes. Optionally, you can add a few drops of squeezed blackberry juice to the frosting for a nice effect. Bon appétit!
Adopted from the Lindt recipe for a black velvet cake.
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