Liberation Party with Chocolate Blackout Cake

12th August was Shalvika's B'day and she decided to have a party on 15th August [India's Independence day] and gave it a theme of Liberation....

We planned the menu, decor, guest list and lots of other nitty gritty for the party. I offered to do the cake and dip as it was a holiday and how could a 'Foodus Bloggerus'.[ Click here to know what a 'Foodus Bloggerus' is.] like me let this pass.....

Happy Birthday Shalvika.......



The brief was chocolatey chocholate cake.........Hmmmm set my brains ticking........ Thought of the 'Chocolate Blackout Cake'.... warm moist n awesomely chocolatey.....

I had found this treasure at sundaynitedinner.com and just loved it. This time I made it without the pudding.

Had a really good time making the cake. Have made it once before for Babaji and then for Surbhi n Mohit in Hyderabad. So I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. Just that I've not posted cake before. It has a story of it's own...... Will do a separate post on that and how Deeba[yet again :-)] came to my rescue the first time I had done this cake.

Since I was baking for a party of 20 people, did 2 cakes.

Am glad to report, the cake was a hit. I loved it too. I can generally not eat what I cook on that day. I eat the dishes/cakes cook/bake, the next day. This cake was different, i stuffed myself on it after a couple of shots :-)




Chocolate Blackout Cake Recipe

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups plus 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa (preferable Dutch processed)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup brewed coffee, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 dozen chocolate wafer cookies

Directions To make the cake:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Lightly butter 2 (8-inch) cake pans and line with parchment. Butter the parchment and flour pans, shaking out the excess.
• Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Reserve.
• In a mixer with a paddle attachment, beat eggs and sugar until thick and lemon-colored. Beat in vegetable oil.
• Alternately add dry ingredients with buttermilk, scraping the bowl once or twice.
• Add the coffee and vanilla to form a thin batter.
• Divide between prepared cake pans.
• Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cake comes out clean, about 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in pan for 15 minutes. Invert onto cooling racks, peel off paper and cool completely.

I didn't follow the next teps for the cake this time. I used chocolate glaze instead.

• When cool, split each cake in half with a serrated slicing knife.
• Spread bottom layer with 1/4 of the reserved chocolate pudding.
• Repeat with remaining layers, ending with pudding on top.
• In a food processor, pulse the cookies into crumbs. Sprinkle on top of the cake.

Makes 12 servings
[Adapted from Sweet Stuff: Karen Barker's American Desserts]