• last year
Transcript
00:00 They say the devil has all the best tunes.
00:05 I kind of think he's got the edge on recipes too.
00:08 Certainly if this devil's food cake is anything to go by.
00:11 Devil's food cake really means like deep, dark chocolate cake.
00:15 So I'm starting off with quite a lot of cocoa.
00:17 It's 50 grams in there.
00:19 After the cocoa, just to enhance the treatly darkness,
00:25 I want 100 grams of dark muscovado sugar.
00:30 And I'm making this into a sort of dark, malevolently dark syrup,
00:37 just by pouring 250 ml of recently boiled water over it.
00:44 And I know it looks like an awful lot of water to put in a cake,
00:49 but that's what really counteracts the drying quality of the cocoa
00:53 and makes every mouthful just melt.
00:57 Anyway, now the dry ingredients.
01:02 I need 225 grams of plain flour.
01:06 It's so simple, this cake.
01:10 Not very hard to weigh out flour and measure it out.
01:15 A teeny bit more.
01:19 And to this, half a teaspoon of baking powder and half of bicarb.
01:31 Most cakes start with creaming butter and sugar.
01:35 This one is no exception.
01:37 That's 125 grams of soft, unsalted butter there.
01:41 And to that, sprinkle in, pour in 150 grams of caster sugar.
01:54 So we've got everything for the cake batter there,
01:56 bar the vanilla and eggs, and they're coming.
02:02 Once the cake is done, there is the lush frosting,
02:06 but I'll come to that.
02:09 If it's pale and fluffy, I'm going to add some vanilla, lots of vanilla,
02:12 two teaspoons, but then the cocoa is bitter
02:16 and the dark muscovado sugar treatly can take this.
02:21 And now it's just a question of alternating dry ingredients and eggs, so...
02:27 Dry ingredients.
02:32 One egg.
02:36 The rest of the dried ingredients.
02:42 And my second and final egg.
02:49 Such a fantastic vanilla-tamed mixture,
02:52 but I am going to do violence to that by pouring in this chocolate liquor.
02:59 Mmm.
03:01 Beautiful, isn't it?
03:03 As you might imagine, this is a very wet batter, so do not be alarmed.
03:08 That's what it should be.
03:09 If it were drier, you wouldn't get such a luscious, tender crumb later.
03:17 Ah, peace.
03:21 Peace but a bit of mess. I don't mind that, because it is a bit liquid.
03:25 But you want that liquidness.
03:28 Mmm, that is glorious.
03:32 Right, to business.
03:35 Bit of buttering of the pans.
03:37 Just the sides, of course.
03:40 Lightly.
03:43 And then they are ready to be filled with this glossy, chocolatey cake batter.
03:48 You know, the first time I made this cake,
03:51 I thought my children would hate it and they'd complain that it was too dark,
03:55 too rich, not sugary enough.
03:59 But I left it out on a Friday night, only to get up the next morning
04:03 and see a kind of teenager trail of chocolatey crumbs.
04:08 It's a mistake I don't want to make again.
04:12 These two gleaming pools need 30 minutes in a 180-degree oven,
04:17 and then they will be ready to be cooled and anointed
04:23 with their chocolate-glazed frosting.
04:29 When the cakes are ready, they'll have started coming away from the sides of the tins.
04:37 Put both tins on a wire cooling rack and leave there for five to ten minutes
04:41 before turning both cakes out to cool completely.
04:47 The allure of a devil's food cake lies partly, well, in great part, with the frosting.
04:54 It's very, very simple to make.
04:58 But it takes a while just to cool and become spreadable,
05:03 which is why I make it ahead. I mean, it's so easy, I just did this.
05:07 I put 125 millilitres of water in a pan
05:11 and then add 30 grams of dark mascarpone sugar
05:15 and 175 grams of soft, unsalted butter.
05:21 Put it on the heat, but make sure it's low, and let everything melt and dissolve together.
05:27 Though you should whisk every now and then, just to make sure all the sugar is dispersed.
05:34 When the mixture comes to a boil, turn off the heat
05:37 and add 300 grams of best-quality dark chocolate.
05:41 Either chop it finely yourself or use little buttons that will melt easily.
05:46 Swirl the pan so that the chocolate begins to melt in the liquid
05:52 and then leave for a minute before whisking together until gleaming and smooth.
06:01 Cakes that are filled and frosted need layers that aren't too deep,
06:05 so that's why these are shallow. It's meant to be like that.
06:09 I put the first layer topside down, you see what I mean,
06:13 and then time to start with the filling.
06:17 So about a third of the lovely chocolate mixture gets dolloped on top
06:25 and spread it around.
06:34 The top part goes on the regular way up.
06:38 I'm going to put most of the frosting on the top and then try and coax it down the sides.
06:44 You probably could make this look fantastically smooth.
06:49 I couldn't. And anyway, I love the way the chocolate seems to gleam more
06:54 in these little swirls and spirals.
07:00 This frosting never quite sets hard, but the stickiness is part of what makes it taste so delicious.
07:10 And I'm done.
07:14 You know what? Just to be on the safe side,
07:18 save some cake for me.
07:26 I've got some cakes there to make up for that I didn't say please.
07:33 Yeah, this may be called Devil's Food Cake, but it tastes heavenly.
07:40 [Music]