A Christmas-y twist to a classic chocolate cake
Despite the combination of both dark and white chocolate, this cake is actually hero-ed by my homemade Christmas spice blend.
Spice Blend
The spice blend I created was a combination of refreshing, sweet spices that would make you feel like Christmas. Dry roasting them whole brought a brilliant fragrance to them and also made the flavour extra special.
Recipe:
Ingredients
For the spice blend:
2 tbsp cloves
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 cinnamon sticks
1 whole nutmeg
5 star anise
10-12 black peppercorns
For the cake:
2 cups of caster sugar
2 cups of softened butter
2 cups of flour
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup melted chocolate
2 egg yolks
3 egg whites
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp instant coffee powder
3 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
A pinch of salt
For the Buttercream:
450 gm softened butter
4 cups of icing sugar
1 cup white chocolate ganache
Juice of 1 lemon
Method
For the spice blend, dry roast the spices and blend in a spice blender till powdered.
Cream together the butter and the sugar till butter is pale and smooth. Add in the eggs and combine. Add the melted chocolate and buttercream. Sift in the cocoa powder and flour with the baking agents. Top with salt and 3 tbsp of spice blend and fold gently till combined. Transfer to 2 baking dishes and cook at 170*C for 45 minutes.
For the buttercream, whip up the chocolate ganache till pale and light. In a separate bowl, whip up the butter and sugar. Adjust the sugar or butter according to the consistency desired. Top with lemon juice and combine with the white chocolate.
To assemble, line each layer with equal amount of buttercream, leaving approximately 85-95 gm of it for a crumb coat. Crumb coat the cake after icing it, then top with either melted chocolate, fresh fruit and herbs, or candy!