Chocolate Wedding Cake

This is one of my favourite fool proof chocolate recipes. It is from an old Canadian book, of which it was ripped off and given to me years ago. I’m afraid I do not know who the author is, all I know is that the book was Canadian!

I used this recipe to make this wedding cake for a very dear friend. The wedding was a small ceremony with around 30 guests or so. The cake went down so well that the bride and groom kept the entire top tier (a five inch cake) for themselves to enjoy later!

This is a very moist cake with a beautiful and delicate cocoa flavour. It goes best with chocolate ganache, recipe below, and/or buttercream.

Chocolate Wedding Cake Close Up

Ingredients

(In American cups, one cup is 240ml)

  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 boiling hot water from the kettle
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 125 gms butter
  • 1 +  1/3 cup caster sugar
  • 1 + 1/2 cup plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 extra large eggs or 3 medium eggs

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C. For fan ovens, please check the manufacturer’s guidelines, all ovens are different.

Cream the butter and sugar really well in a stand mixer or with a handheld mixer, then add the vanilla and mix again. Add one egg at a time and mix really well. Do not worry if the mixture looks curdled.

In a bowl, add 1/2 cup of boiling hot water to 1/2 cup cocoa. Whisk well and then then add 1/2 cup cold milk to the mixture. The entire mixture should cool down as a result.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl with a balloon whisk. This includes flour, baking powder and baking soda.

Add a third of the cocoa liquid to the creamed butter and sugar, mix, then add a third of the dry ingredients and mix and keep mixing alternately until everything is thoroughly combined. The final batter will be much more liquid than your average cake mix.

Bake at 170C in an 8″ greased and floured cake pan until the sides start to shrink slightly. Depending on your oven, this will take anything between 40 – 50 minutes. Check after 40 minutes. A cake tester should come out with a few moist crumbs attached. For cupcakes, divide into 16-20 cupcakes, again, this number depends on the size of your cupcake cases and check after 25 minutes.

This is what the finished cake looked like:

Chocolate Wedding Cake

This chocolate cake is covered in ganache. For the ganache, I used this recipe:

Ingredients

For chocolate ganache –

  • 500 gms good quality cooking chocolate
  • 500 mls double cream

Method

Heat cream gently in a saucepan. Do not let it boil. Remove from heat. Add chopped chocolate and stir until completely smooth and glossy. Keep this in the fridge for a few hours until slightly set. Mix well with a wooden spoon and then cover your cake with it!

This is a close up or the rose on top of the cake. I made this using white florist paste to which I added a tiny bit of Caramel colour.

White Rose on Chocolate Wedding Cake

Finally, I could not resist a shot of the mini roses, they were the finishing touch on the cake!

White Roses by Chocolate Wedding Cake

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