Professional Baker Teaches You How To Make CHOCOLATE CAKE!

[Music] chocolate cake is an essential in every pastry chef's tool kit and i'll show you everything you need to know about this universal favorite we need to start with the basics first a good devil's food cake this is sort of the foundation chocolate cake the chocolate cake where all chocolate cakes came from i'll start by sifting a cup and a half of cake and pastry flour and half a cup of dutch processed cocoa powder which lends a rich chocolate taste and deep dark chocolate color and then three quarters of a teaspoon of baking soda quarter teaspoon of salt and this is super fine sugar it dissolves quickly into the cake batter and helps make the cake itself moist i'll add a cup and a third i sift the sugar in with the dry ingredients this is a contemporary style of making an old-fashioned chocolate cake by starting with the dry ingredients and then adding half a cup of cool unsalted butter i'll blend this in until i get a fine crumb it almost looks like chocolate bread crumbs since we're starting with a basic chocolate cake recipe this technique of cutting the butter into the dry ingredients is really the easiest method and there we go there are no visible big pieces of butter so now it's time to add the liquid ingredients i have half a cup of milk and then i've got half a cup of strong hot coffee and the hot coffee is there not so much to make a coffee flavor but it actually intensifies the chocolate taste i'll add a teaspoon of vanilla to that add this all at once and with the mixer running whisk two eggs together to add at the very end mix just until they're blended perfect i've got two eight-inch cake pans and what i've done is simply greased the entire pan put a piece of parchment in the bottom and then floured the sides i'll divide this evenly between the two pans it is supposed to be a fluid batter and then i give them a good tap so any larger size bubbles that might be hiding in the batter rise to the surface and pop i've preheated the oven to 350 and the cakes take about 30 minutes [Music] and here are the cakes and of course the standard test when a skewer comes clean when inserted in the center it is done it's important when you're cooling any cake to cool it first in the pan but just for about 20 minutes then after that you turn it out of the cake pan and let it cool completely before you put on the icing while these are cooling i can start on the fudgy frosting you know you're gonna have a good chocolate frosting when you start with 12 ounces of chocolate yes that's right three quarters of a pound this is semi-sweet baking chocolate not the kind of chocolate chips you use in chocolate chip cookies but this melts smoothly into the fudge frosting and i'm going to set this over a water bath creating your own double boiler a double boiler is created by taking a pot filling it with just an inch of water and bringing that up to a gentle simmer i like to use a metal bowl and that way it's the gentle heat of the steam that melts the chocolate evenly i'm pouring in a cup and three quarters of whipping cream and i like to melt the cream and chocolate together for this frosting because i just want to melt the chocolate and not heat the whole mixture up too much this just takes a couple minutes while the chocolate's melting i'll get half a cup of sour cream along with a little vanilla and always add a little bit of salt stir that together this ganache the simple combination of whipping cream and chocolate turns silky and thick but as it cools it thickens up and that becomes our fudgy frosting i'll add a bit of sour cream that lightens up the sweetness of that 12 ounces of chocolate i let the fudgy frosting cool completely to room temperature i have the cool devil's food cakes and i already have some frosting cooled and ready to ice the cakes before i ice the cake i like to put a cake board underneath it that way once i'm done i can take it wherever i need to take it first thing i'll do is put a nice dollop this fudgy frosting in the center of the cake and spread it right to the outside edge now the next layer and i put it upside down that way the most flat sits on top to frost the outside of the cake i put a large dollop of frosting on the top spread it right to the outside edge and over it a little bit then i do the sides because that way the sides will meet up with the frosting on the top and create a perfect flat edge all the way around the cake and the easiest technique for a beautiful cake is just the swirls and swishes of your offset spatula that may be just a basic devil's food cake but that is a cake you'd be proud to make and to serve

Channel: Oh Yum with Anna Olson

Views: 4,292,710

Keywords: professional baker teaches

Id: VC4Vo3PKfz4

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Wed May 18 2016