chocolate easter egg layer cake
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chocolate easter egg layer cake.
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I know the Easter break is almost over but I thought I'd share this recipe with you for a chocolate layer cake, decorated with easter eggs. This isn't the first time a chocolate easter egg layer cake has appeared on the blog. This one is a completely different recipe though and one I wrote for the Everten Love to Cook blog.
The chocolate cake is adapted from a Julia Turshen recipe from her book, Small Victories. For the chocolate cream icing, I used my regular cream cheese icing recipe and kept adding stuff until it tasted good and good it was.
Rather than slicing through cakes, I baked 4 individual 16 cm cakes. Of course you could bake this in two 16 cm tins and slice the cakes horizontally but cutting cakes evenly is not my forte.
If you'd like to make this 4 layer chocolate cake with or without the chocolate eggs, here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, 60 gm eggs and unsalted butter unless specified. My oven is a conventional gas oven, not fan forced, so you may have to lower your oven temperature by 20°C.
Chocolate Easter Egg Layer Cake
1 cup (150 g) plain flour
1 cup (220 g) caster sugar
¾ cup (75 g) Dutch-processed cocoa powder, sifted
1 tsp bicarb soda
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
110 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs, lightly beaten
150 mls strong black coffee, at room temperature
150 mls buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing
30mls cream
60 g dark chocolate, finely chopped
3 tbs cocoa, sifted
60g butter, softened
125g cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
Easter eggs to decorate
Cake
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease and line the base of four 16 cm cake pans (I used the Master Pro non stick layer pan from Everten) with baking paper. I lightly dusted each pan with a tsp of cocoa powder.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarb soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the melted butter, eggs, coffee, buttermilk and vanilla and whisk until the batter is smooth. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cake pans (I used scales, but you can also use a measuring cup to be accurate).
Bake until the cakes are firm to the touch about 25 minutes and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Transfer the cakes, still in their pans, to a wire rack and let cool completely. Once cool, loosen the edges of the cakes from the pans with a knife and invert them onto your work surface. Peel and discard the baking paper then turn right side up.
Icing
To make the dark chocolate cream cheese icing, bring the cream to the boil then remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and leave to melt. When the chocolate has melted add the cocoa and to stir to make a paste. Set aside to cool.
While the chocolate is cooling beat the butter, cream cheese and vanilla in a bowl until very pale and creamy. Gradually add the icing sugar, beating well after each addition. Add the chocolate paste to the cream cheese icing and stir well until you have a rich dark smooth icing. Refrigerate the bowl of icing to firm before decorating the cakes.
To assemble
Use a large serrated knife to level the top of each cake. Reserve the best layer for the top of the cake. Place one cake layer onto a serving plate. Spread with ¼ of the dark chocolate cream cheese icing. If your icing is very soft, refrigerate the cake to firm the icing before topping with the next cake layer. Continue to repeat this process, decorating the top of the cake with chocolate eggs then refrigerate until serving time. This is a rich cake so cut into small slices to serve.
I hope you all enjoyed your Easter break. See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen. I'm heading to Europe in just 2 weeks and I'm starting to get excited even though I'm still waiting on both my new passport and credit card to arrive.
See you all again soon.
Bye for now,
Jillian
I had no plans to make a 4 layer Chocolate Easter Egg Cake until I went to the supermarket last week and saw the front cover of the Coles magazine.
Inspired by the photo I bought some Easter eggs for decoration, adapted a favourite chocolate cake recipe and made a very large batch of cream cheese icing.
I haven't been sleeping well for a while and when I'm tired I make lots of silly errors. For a 4 layer cake you really need to focus on the task at hand and I couldn't.
Trying to do the calculations for the icing saw me reach for the calculator and my kitchen scales. In the end I marked the side of each bowl with a wax pen just to ensure I didn't do something really silly.
Normally when I ice a layer cake I chill the cake first then ice the layer before returning the cake to the fridge to allow the cream cheese icing to firm. Once the cream cheese icing has firmed, I add the second layer repeating the process until the final layer has been placed. Except I didn't do that on this occasion. With each layer the cake started to slide, so by the time I'd put all the layers together the cake had a spectacular lean, not unlike the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I wasn't sure the cake would hold together long enough for me to photograph it. I quickly decorated the top of the cake with some Easter eggs then photographed it before putting the cake back into the fridge to firm a little more. Once the cake had been in the fridge overnight, I managed to get it into work in one piece with no further mishaps.
Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.
Chocolate Easter Egg Layer Cake - makes a 17 cm -20 cm layer cake.
Cake Ingredients
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
1 cup boiling water
2 cups plain flour
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch salt
250g unsalted butter, softened
1¼ cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
⅔ cup sour lite cream
Vanilla Cream Cheese Icing
60g butter, softened
125g cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups icing sugar mixture
Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing
60g butter, softened
125g cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla
30 g cocoa, sifted
60 g dark chocolate, melted, cooled
2 cups icing sugar mixture
1 tbs sour lite cream
Easter eggs to decorate
Cake
Grease and line two 17 cm tins with baking paper. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F.
In a small bowl, combine the cocoa powder with the boiling water with and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
Sift flour, bicarb soda and salt into a bowl. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add the eggs to the creamed butter mixture. Add the flour alternately with the chocolate mixture and sour cream and beat just to combine. Pour half the batter into each tin and bake the cakes until tester inserted into the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour. Place on a wire rack until cool.
Icing
To make the vanilla cream cheese icing, use an electric mixer to beat the butter, cream cheese and vanilla in a bowl until very pale and creamy. Gradually add the icing sugar, beating well after each addition.
To make the dark chocolate cream cheese icing, cream the butter with the cream cheese and vanilla; beat until fully incorporated. Gradually add the icing sugar, beating on low speed until well combined. Add cocoa and melted chocolate and mix until well blended. If needed, add some sour cream to make a spreading consistency.
To assemble
When the cakes are cool, remove the baking paper. Use a large serrated knife to level the top of each cake and then halve each cake horizontally. Place one cake layer onto a serving plate. Spread with half the dark chocolate cream cheese icing. Top with another cake layer.
Reserve half the vanilla cream cheese icing. Combine one-third of the remaining cream cheese icing with two-thirds of the dark chocolate cream cheese icing. Spread evenly over the cake. Top with another cake layer.
Combine the remaining dark chocolate cream cheese icing with the remaining cream cheese icing and spread evenly over the cake. Top with the remaining cake layer and reserved cream cheese icing. Decorate with chocolate eggs.
If you'd like to make a less ambitious Easter Egg Cake, you could make a 2 layer 23 cm/9 inch cake cake with this recipe. Instead of fiddling with 4 different fillings I'd only make one, either one batch of the vanilla or one batch of the chocolate cream cheese icing. I think one batch would be enough to both fill and top the cake. I had a sliver of cake after lunch and this cake is no shrinking violet. It's very rich but also very delicious. The cake is very moist and fudge like with lashings of chocolate flavoured cream cheese icing.
Meanwhile I'm in the process of planning the recipes for my annual Passover week. I have most of the recipes sorted out but if there is anything in particular you'd like me to try just drop me a line - info@jillianleiboff.com
See you all again soon,
Jillian