Triple Chocolate Cake

 This is what I want to call this cake:

C³

But I can't figure out how to type the superscript into the 'Blogger Post Title' without using HTML.  So I'll have to settle for Triple Chocolate Cake.

If I haven't mentioned it before I love chocolate more than any other food in the world.  I love all types of chocolate--dark, milk and white alike.

The big idea

A couple of years ago a good friend of mine gave me this book on cooking/baking ratios.  It's really cool actually and it allows you to experiment all by your lonesome and come up with your own recipes.  So this cake is my own creation.  I'm excited to share it.  I keep tweaking it here and there so it's not perfect but it's getting there.

I was excited to make this cake for several reasons:

1.)  I love making cakes
2.)  I love eating cakes
3.)  I love chocolate
4.)  I found a place that sells Valrhona cocoa powder (a couverture chocolate that is normally elusive to me) and immediately purchased a package
5.)  Then I found another place that sells Valrhona baking chocolate in bulk! (another sign obviously!)
6.)  I wanted to test my cake decorating skills with making buttercream roses and that ombre petal    technique that became so popular a while back.

 So I decided to make one that was 3 layers:  A white chocolate cake layer, milk chocolate layer and dark chocolate layer.  In between the cake layers would be a whipped white chocolate ganache, then a whipped milk chocolate ganache followed by a dark chocolate ganache.  And finally to envelop the cake, and to achieve my ombre effect, I frosted it with white, milk and dark chocolate swiss meringue buttercreams respectively.  It was a triple chocolate cake of the most extreme extents that I could imagine.

The dark chocolate layer is the cake recipe that I've worked on the most but this time I used the Valrhona cocoa powder I found.  It was so dark and beautifully chocolatey.  Personally I think it was the best layer.  On the other hand, for the milk and white chocolate layers I didn't have any cocoa powder so I used my same recipe but I used the melted milk and white Valrhona baking chocolates.  These layers were slightly denser.  I think that's probably because I used some extra liquid in my dark chocolate layer to melt the cocoa powder in and nixed this extra liquid from the milk and white layers.  Also, using melted chocolate in a recipe versus cocoa powder just seems to lend to a different textured cake no matter what.  And I do prefer using cocoa powder--I think it reigns supreme for cake.  Nevertheless, I think I'll either add the extra liquid to these layers next time or--if it exists and I can find it--use milk and white chocolate cocoa powders.

As far as my decorating skills go....I think they are improving.  I've tried the ombre petal technique before--about a year ago with a 4th of July cake I made.  When I made that I was up until midnight working on it (on a school night no less).  It was one of those hot humid nights so I was sweating mega-style and I was exhausted so it turned out sorta ok.

My 4th of July cake. I guarded it with my life.

But this time I planned ahead and it turned out much better.  I think it has to do with using swiss meringue buttercream too.  This buttercream is so creamy and smooth and easy to work with.  And not that it's a bonus for me because I have a mammoth sweet tooth as is but it is less sweet than those quick buttercreams that use a pound of powdered sugar.  It's a bit more work to make but I think it's definitely worth it.

 Anyway, I think my little cake is pretty dope. So, yeah.  I like cake.

For the cakes:

Dark Chocolate layer

75g cake flour sifted
22g Valrhona cocoa powder (or any brand of unsweetened cocoa powder that you have)
100g granulated sugar
44g melted unsalted butter cooled
18g oil
1 large egg at room temperature
1/4c buttermilk at room temperature
1/4c boiling water
1 tsp potato starch
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350
Grease a 6" cake pan and insert a circle of parchment paper on the bottom of the pan
Whisk all dry ingredients together except for the cocoa powder
Sprinkle cocoa powder over 1/4c of the boiling water and stir in a bit
Whisk the butter, oil, egg and buttermilk together
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir/fold just until combined
Pour the cocoa powder/boiling water mixture in the batter and lightly stir/fold in
Pour full batter into greased 6" cake pan and spread evenly
Bake at 350 for 27-28 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out cleanly
Remove from oven and cool completely before removing cake from pan


Milk Chocolate layer

97g cake flour sifted

100g granulated sugar

44g melted unsalted butter cooled

18g oil

1 large egg at room temperature

1/3c buttermilk

1 tsp potato starch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

2 1/2 oz melted Valrhona milk chocolate

Preheat oven to 350

Grease a 6" cake pan and insert a circle of parchment paper on the bottom of the pan

Melt chocolate using either a double boiler or in the microwave.  Set aside to cool 

Whisk all dry ingredients together

Whisk the butter, oil, egg and buttermilk together

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir/fold just until combined

Pour the melted chocolate into the batter and fold/stir in until combined evenly throughout batter

Pour full batter into greased 6" cake pan and spread evenly

Bake at 350 for 30-35 (it was closer to 35 for me) minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out cleanly

Remove from oven and cool completely before removing cake from pan

White Chocolate layer

97g cake flour sifted

100g granulated sugar

44g melted unsalted butter cooled

18g oil

1 large egg at room temperature

1/3c buttermilk

1 tsp potato starch

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

2 1/2 oz melted Valrhona white chocolate

Preheat oven to 350

Grease a 6" cake pan and insert a circle of parchment paper on the bottom of the pan

Melt chocolate using either a double boiler or in the microwave.  Set aside to cool 

Whisk all dry ingredients together

Whisk the butter, oil, egg and buttermilk together

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir/fold just until combined

Pour the melted chocolate into the batter and fold/stir in until combined evenly throughout batter

Pour full batter into a greased 6" cake pan and spread evenly

Bake at 350 for 30-35 (it was closer to 35 for me) minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out cleanly

Remove from oven and cool completely before removing cake from pan

Note:  I baked all 3 cakes at the same time which may have contributed to some of the longer baking times for a 6" cake?  Or maybe it was just the batter...

For the whipped chocolate ganaches I used these instructions found here.  It's a 50/50 combination of chocolate and cream so I used 2 oz of chocolate and 2 oz of heavy cream for each type of chocolate.

For the Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

297g of granulated sugar

198g of egg whites (6-7 eggs)

pinch of salt

3-4 sticks of butter 

2 oz of melted and cooled dark, milk and white chocolate respetively

I always use these instructions for reference.  

Note:  The amount of butter you use varies--it just depends on when the buttercream starts coming together so you just keep adding the butter little by little until you see it forming a heavier whipped texture.  I actually ran out of butter (I had less than 4 sticks) and ended up using vegetable shortening for the last leg until it started coming together and it worked just fine.

After I made the buttercream I divided it up into thirds and poured in each of the cooled melted chocolates respectively and whipped each until fully combined.

To assemble the cake, I put the white chocolate layer on the bottom, spread the whipped white chocolate ganache over it.  Then came the milk chocolate layer and atop that the whipped milk chocolate ganache.  Lastly the dark chocolate layer and spread over that was the whipped dark chocolate ganache.  After that I covered the cake in a crumb coating of buttercream and after it set in sitting in the fridge for about a half hour I began to frost the rest of the cake.

For the petal decorating technique I used this excellent tutorial I came across a while back.  It's very helpful.