CAKE - Chocolate Blackout Cake

By á-47159

Ingredients

• recipe of Devil’s Food Cake:
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/8 cups cocoa powder (It doesn’t seem to make a difference if you use natural or Dutch-processed), sift if lumpy.
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk or buttermilk
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup hot coffee
• 1/4 cup rum or brandy (if you opt out of the booze then use equal parts coffee)
• Chocolate pudding:
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 3 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• for the custard:
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
• 5 egg yolks
• Italian meringue:
• 2 large egg whites
• 1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar (divided)
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• butter and chocolate to finish buttercream:
• 1 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
• 8 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature.

Details

Adapted from zoebakes.com

Preparation

Step 1

Devils Cake:
Heat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare 3 dozen muffin tins with papers

Combine all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and whisk until combined, set aside.

Whisk together, eggs, milk, oil and vanilla until well combined. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Slowly add the hot coffee and rum to the batter and whisk until totally blended and smooth, about 2 minutes. The batter will be quite runny.

Baked in an 8 by 3-Inch cake pan for about 45 minutes or until tester comes out clean.

This batch can make 3 dozens cupcake and bake for 18-20mins.

To make the pudding:
Bring milk, salt, 1/4 cup sugar, vanilla and butter to a gentle boil in a medium sized sauce pot. Whisk together the egg yolks, remaining sugar, cornstarch and cocoa powder in a medium bowl. Slowly add the hot milk mixture to the eggs. Once the eggs are warm to the touch add everything back to the sauce pot and whisk over medium heat until the mixture has boiled for 3 minutes. It is very important to whisk for 3 full minutes to cook out the cornstarch or your pudding will be grainy and may separate once it is cooled. Remove from the heat and add the chopped chocolate. Whisk it in gently, but thoroughly.

If your pudding has any lumps than strain it, this is not always necessary. Cover the pudding with plastic wrap pressed right on the surface. Refrigerate for at least an hour, but this can be made a day ahead.

To make the buttercream:
Whisk together the egg yolks and 1/4 cup sugar in a medium bowl, set aside. Heat the milk, 1/4 cup sugar and vanilla bean in a medium sauce pot. Once it just begins to simmer whisk a little bit of the hot milk to the egg yolks. Once the yolks are warm to the touch add them back into the pot of milk and gently stir with a rubber spatula until the mixture just begins to thicken and coats the spatula. Quickly remove from heat and strain into a shallow container. Refrigerate for at least an hour, but this can be made a day ahead.

To prepare the Italian meringue:
Once the custard is cool and you are ready to finish the buttercream heat 1/3 cup sugar and water together in a small pot with a Candy Thermometer. Let them boil and once the sugar is melted turn down the heat and begin to whip your egg whites.

Whip the whites and cream of tartar until they are foamy on medium speed. Slowly add the 2 tablespoons of sugar and whip until the whites form medium-firm peaks, turn the mixer to low. By this time your sugar syrup should be about 248 degrees. Once it reaches that temperature on the candy thermometer remove it immediately from the heat. Turn your mixer up to medium-low and carefully pour the hot syrup into the mixer along the side of the bowl. DO NOT let the syrup hit the whip attachment or the hot syrup with splatter. Whip the hot whites on medium-high until they cool, about 3-5 minutes.

In a separate bowl fitted with the paddle attachment cream the butter. Once it is soft add the chilled custard and mix on medium until it is smooth.

Add the Italian meringue to the butter mixture in 3 stages, on medium-low speed. When you first get all the meringue incorporated it may look curdled, like the picture above. Just let it mix for another 2 minutes. It should become nice and smooth. If it doesn’t then the butter was too cold. Just hold it over the stove for a few seconds to melt the butter a bit and then try remixing. Don’t hold it over the stove too long or you will melt it too much. Better to do it twice for a short amount of time.

Once your buttercream is nice and smooth add the room temperature melted chocolate. Mix together on medium-low just until it is well incorporated.

Cut the cake into 3 layers, fill it with 2 layers of the pudding. Be sure to build your cake on a cardboard round to make moving it and decorating it easier. (I cut the top layer of cake off and put it in a food processor to create the crumbs for the outside. I also tend to have bags of frozen cake scraps in my freezer which make this a snap.)