Fudgey Chocolate Cake with Cayenne Mascarpone Cream

Adapted from Nomad with Cookies

makes a four-layer cake!

Fudgey Chocolate Cake with Cayenne Mascarpone Cream

Chocolate Cake
2 c (450 g) sugar
3 c (200 g) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 c plus 4 tsp (130 g) cocoa powder
1 1/2 c (320 g) unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 c plus 2 tbsp (350 ml) water
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 c (350 ml) milk

Cayenne Mascarpone Cream
16 oz (500 g) mascarpone, room temp
1/2 c (90 g) powdered sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (1 tsp if you like spicy things, A LOT)
2 c (480 g) heavy cream

Instructions

For the chocolate cake
Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Grease your cake pans with butter (or oil). Line the bottom of each pan with parchment paper. This gives you extra cake-will-actually-release-from-the-pan insurance.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa powder. Whisk (or sift) to combine.

In another large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk and water. (We do not add the melted butter here. The reason is because once the melted butter meets the cold milk, it will seize and create lumps rendering it near impossible to have a smooth cohesive batter. So let’s leave the butter out of the party until the next step.)

Add the liquids along with the melted butter to the dry ingredients. Whisk to combine until the lumps are out and the batter is mostly smooth. Don’t over whisk as this may result in a tough cake.

Split the batter evenly amongst your cake pans. If you are from the metric world, I highly recommend weighing the batter and dividing by four to get the batter weight for each layer. This ensures even layers.

Bake the cakes for 20m or until the cake springs back to the touch. If you bake more than 2 layers at once, it will likely take longer for the cakes to bake since your oven will be crowded.

Remove cakes and let cool.

For the cayenne mascarpone cream
Whisk together the mascarpone, cayenne and powdered sugar until smooth.

Whip the heavy cream until medium peaks form.

Fold (not whisk) the whipped cream into the mascarpone until incorporated. Refrigerate until needed.

For the assembly
Once the cakes are cool, you may notice a hump or bubble on top of the cake. It’s best to trim the top of each layer so they are flat. Using a serrated knife, gently trim off this bubble of cake. Proceed to eat cake scraps.

Once all the cakes have been trimmed, remove parchment and place the first layer on your plate/stand/piece-of-cardboard-wrapped-in-foil. Put a big dollop of mascarpone cream on the first layer and spread until even. Add next layer of cake and repeat.

Zoe: not tested