We Tested Ina Garten's Chocolate Cake Recipe
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Ina Garten'due south chocolate block recipe has a secret.
I'm a sucker for a adept cake recipe. Fifty-fifty if it'due south not someone's birthday, I'll bound at the chance to whip upward a multi-tiered treat. When I stumbled across this Ina Garten chocolate cake (aka Beatty'due south Chocolate Block), I knew I had to brand it.
This beauty has over 2,000 reviews and still maintains a 5-star rating! And so, on a snowy day, I gathered up my ingredients and put her recipe to the test. Here's what happened.
Check out our all-time-always chocolate cake recipes.
The Famous Ina Garten Chocolate Block Recipe
Ingredients
For the Block:
- Butter and flour, for greasing pans
- 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups carbohydrate
- ¾ cups good cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- one loving cup buttermilk, shaken
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- two extra-large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla excerpt
- one loving cup freshly brewed hot coffee
For the Chocolate Frosting:
- 6 ounces proficient semisweet chocolate (Ina recommends Callebaut)
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 extra-big egg yolk, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1¼ cups sifted confectioners' sugar
- ane tablespoon instant java powder
Tools You'll Need
- Wilton 8″ Cake Pan: It seems like a ix″ cake pan is shut plenty—but using a larger cake pan will create thin layers. For optimal peak, utilize two eight″ block pans.
- KitchenAid Sifter & Calibration Attachment: This KitchenAid zipper is a splurge at $129, but it'south a must for bakers who desire to piece of work quickly.
- Showtime Spatula: TheGustatory modality of DwellingTest Kitchen cooks use an offset spatula for a picture-perfect frosting terminate.
Directions
Step 1: Become ready to broil
I started by prepping my pans and ingredients. First, I preheated the oven to 350°F. Adjacent, I used butter to grease two eight-inch past 2-inch round block pans, then I placed a parchment circumvolve on the bottom of the pan, buttered the newspaper, then lightly coated the surface with flour. (If you've never washed this before, check out our no-fail guide to how to grease a cake pan.)
Next, I measured out all of my ingredients. This technique, called mise en place, may create a few extra dishes, but information technology makes the blistering process a whole lot easier. When everything is pre-measured at that place's no demand to cease and level a cup of flour or worry that yous forgot to add an ingredient.
Get more than of Ina's best cooking tips.
Step 2: Sift dry ingredients
One time my ingredients were ready to get, I used my KitchenAid Sifter + Scale attachment to quickly combine the flour, carbohydrate, cocoa, baking soda, blistering powder and salt in the basin of my stand mixer. I mixed the dry out ingredients on depression until they were well combined.
Footstep 3: Combine wet ingredients
Then, in a carve up bowl, I combined the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla. Before adding the buttermilk I made certain to give it a few quick whisks since Ina specifically mentions in the ingredients section that the buttermilk needs to exist shaken. I turned my mixer back on low, then slowly incorporated the wet ingredients with the dry.
Step 4: Add together the cloak-and-dagger ingredient
At this bespeak in the recipe, the concoction looked (and smelled!) delicious—merely I still hadn't added Ina's secret ingredient: freshly brewed hot coffee. With my mixer on low, I added the java until it was just combined.
Don't miss all our secret baking tips to have your treats from practiced to great!
Step v: Bake
I divided the batter betwixt my prepared cake pans and popped them in the preheated oven. As I poured the mixture, I realized that the concoction was actually runny. It made sense—since the recipe called for 2-1/2 cups of liquid—merely I was a touch concerned that the cakes wouldn't firm upward.
Stride vi: Remove the cakes
After 35 minutes, I checked on the cakes—and they were perfect! Clearly, I had nothing to worry about. Ina knew what she was doing. I gear up my timer again—this time for 30 minutes—to permit the cakes absurd. Once time was up, I worked a butter knife around the border of each pan to help loosen the cakes, then flipped them onto a wire rack to cool.
Step 7: Cook chocolate
While the cakes cooled, I started on Ina's chocolate buttercream frosting. First, I chopped and melted the chocolate in a double boiler. If you don't have a double boiler, it'southward super like shooting fish in a barrel to make one. All you need to do is nestle a rut-proof bowl over a few inches of simmering water. And, voila! Double boiler. Once the chocolate melts, set it bated and let it absurd to room temperature.
Learn more easy ways to melt chocolate.
Stride 8: Vanquish butter until fluffy
For the next step, I used a manus mixer to beat the butter on medium-speed until it was light and fluffy. About iii minutes should practice it. And so, I added the vanilla and continued to vanquish for some other iii minutes. At present, y'all likely noticed that the original Ina Garten chocolate cake recipe calls for an egg yolk. I chose to omit this ingredient because the FDA recommends cooking egg yolks until business firm. If you cull to add the egg yolk, you'll end up with a richer, more decadent frosting. Merely honestly, it tasted neat without the yolk, also.
Step nine: Finish the frosting
When the butter and vanilla was light and fluffy, I added the confectioners' sugar and mixed until creamy. Then, I measured out 2 teaspoons of hot tap h2o, and dissolved the instant coffee powder in it. While continuing to beat on a low speed, I added the chocolate and java to the butter, mixing until blended.
Step ten: Frost the cake
Since the frosting contains melted chocolate, it firms up the longer it sits, so I knew I needed to work quickly. I started past placing four small pieces of parchment paper on the edges of my cake plate. These would catch any frosting drips and keep my cake plate make clean as I worked.
I placed the first cake, apartment side up, on my plate. I used an offset spatula to spread a generous layer of frosting over the offset layer. Then, I placed the 2nd cake on top of the frosting layer. I used my spatula to frost the superlative and sides of the block. After smoothing the surface, I created texture by gently working my spatula from side to side, creating waves in the icing. To terminate, I slid the parchment pieces out from under the cake.
The Verdict
I cut myself a slice of cake and—Oh. My. Gosh. It was then good. The coffee really boosted the chocolate flavor, creating a dark, rich cake. And the frosting? To die for. It was thick, luscious and extremely decadent. I only needed a pocket-size piece to feel satisfied.
I asked a few family unit members to endeavor the cake, besides. They all agreed it was delicious, just ane mentioned that it was a flake dark for her taste. She prefers sweeter cakes and is an avid fan of milk chocolate, so go on that in mind if you're blistering for a major sweet tooth! Some other tester thought that a fruit curd—like lemon or raspberry—in the middle layer would take this Ina Garten chocolate cake to the next level.
Wait, I've Seen This Recipe Before!
If this cake looks familiar, it'south because Ina's recipe is the aforementioned every bit Hershey's Black Magic Cake. She admits on her show, The Barefoot Contessa, that the recipe came from her florist friend Michael'due south grandmother. The but question that remains is who developed the recipe first!
Ina Garten'southward Peak-Rated Cookbooks
Source: https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/ina-garten-chocolate-cake/
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