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Chocolate Chevron Cake article here..
This rich, dense, elegant Chocolate Chevron Cake from Ina Garten‘s cookbook, Cook Like a Pro, comes from her catering days and is an illustration in how repetition makes you a better cook.
“When the baker didn’t show up, I had to make 50 Chocolate Chevron Cakes,” she recalls. “I learned the fastest and best way to bake a cake that looks impressive without a lot of extra effort.” It’s also a lesson in pairing ingredients to boost flavor. “Some ingredients need a partner to bring out their flavor, which is why I always put a touch of coffee in my chocolate dishes,” Garten explains. “You don’t taste the coffee, but it makes the chocolate taste better.”
Chocolate Chevron Cake
Ingredients
- 8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 (16-oz) can Hershey’s chocolate syrup
- 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 8 oz semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 tsp instant coffee granules
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Directions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter an 8 × 2-inch round cake pan. Line bottom with parchment paper, then butter and flour pan, tapping out excess flour.
- Cream butter and sugar the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until light and fluffy. With mixer on low, add eggs, 1 at a time, then mix in chocolate syrup and vanilla. Add flour; mix until just combined. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 40-45 minutes, until just set in middle. Cool in pan 30 minutes. Remove from pan, turning cake upside down on a wire rack set over a sheet pan. Cool completely.
- Whisk together confectioners’ sugar and 1 Tbsp water until smooth, thick and just barely pourable. When you lift icing from the bowl with the whisk, it should slowly fall back on itself in a ribbon. (You may need to add a few more drops of water.) Fit a pastry bag with a small, round pastry tip and fill it with icing. Set aside.
- To make ganache, place heavy cream, chocolate chips and coffee in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Heat mixture until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Pour ganache evenly over top and sides of cake, tilting rack until ganache is smooth all over.
- Immediately, before ganache sets, pipe parallel lines of confectioner’s sugar mixture about 1 inch apart on entire cake, stopping just short of edge. Lightly drag back of a small paring knife through ganache perpendicular to white lines also 1 inch apart, alternating directions (first left to right, then right to left, and so on) and covering the whole cake. Allow the ganache and icing to set. Cut in wedges; serve at room temperature.
- Pro tip: “You can wrap and refrigerate the cake for a few days, but once it is ‘ganached,’ leave it at room temperature for up to 8 hours,” says Garten. “If you refrigerate it, beads of condensation will form on the ganache and damage the decoration.”
- Reprinted from Cook Like a Pro: Recipes & Tips for Home Cooks. Copyright © 2018 by Ina Garten. Photograph by Quentin Bacon. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
