Best carving cake EVER!

// petal pop's make ahead chocolate cake recipe

With thanks to Petra New in New Zealand who developed this recipe, I have to say hands down it is one of the best carving cakes I have ever played with. A real crowd pleaser, it is an easy scratch chocolate cake recipe to add to your recipe arsenal.

 

For best results, make it at least a week ahead of time, so the flavour develops as it rests tightly wrapped in the refrigerator or freezer.   It doubles and triples beautifully and has a great dense texture that is crumb-less when carving.  

Easy chocolate cake carving recipe

ingredients:

  • 3 cups Water
  • 2 cups Sugar
  • 250 grams Butter
  • 1 cup Dark Unsweetened Cocoa Powder (good quality)
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 4 beaten Eggs
  • 3 cups Self Raising Flour
  • large stock pot
  • hand blender

 

instructions:

  1. On the stovetop, bring the water, sugar, butter and dark cocoa powder to a slow boil, stirring occasionally.
  2. Mix in the baking soda.
  3. Remove from element and allow to cool down at least 15 minutes.
  4. In the same pot, alternate mixing in the eggs,  and the self raising flour
  5. I then use the electronic hand blender to mix batter.  Alternatively, I have also poured the mixture into a food processor for 10 seconds and found this gives me the perfect dense cake texture. Sound strange?  Try and compare! :)
  6. Bake as usual until cooked.  I usually fanbake at 170c.
  7. Rest cake for 15 minutes, before removing from tin. 
  8. When cool, wrap in clingfilm several times and for best results refrigerate or freeze for at least a week. This cake can happily freeze for up to 3 months.