Incredible chocolate devil’s food cake recipe layered with malted milk chocolate raspberry whipped ganache frosting. Finished with chocolate drizzles and fresh raspberries. Powdered sugar, because why not?
I’m not even sure where to start with this one. Devil’s food cake? Raspberry ganache? I mean… malted raspberry chocolate ganache?! Come on, y’all. How could you not want to make this? — I know that most of you have either had a malted shake or have at least heard of them. At least, I hope so. If you haven’t, you are missing out on one of life’s greatest gifts.
What is malt anyway? During Prohibition, many of the breweries needed to find a way to keep the lights on and started to produce malt extracts that were used in many sodas, shake, and illegal home microbrews that kept everyone… warm until the appeal in 1933. Malt powder became popular in milkshakes after a Walgreens in Chicago added it to a chocolate treat, resulting in rave reviews. The powder (available on Amazon) was, and still is, a combination of barley malt, wheat, powdered milk, and salt. It adds a delicious depth that is unmistakable in a dessert.
Many of my recipes on the blog start from exploring cookbooks. I wouldn’t be completely truthful with saying that I just enjoy cookbooks considering the number that I’ve collected over the years. It’s fascinating to look through aged books for ideas and bases for creating something new in my own kitchen. From time to time, new cookbooks will also elicit this same excitement.
The Artful Baker is a book by Cenk Sonmezsoy of the blog Cafe Fernando. I connected with this book in so many ways. Being a total nerd in and out of the kitchen, this obsessively thorough approach to baking completely speaks to me. Baking doesn’t have to be an exact science, but if you enjoy that type of thing it can certainly be as detailed as you’d like it to be in attempt to perfect the art. The recipes in this book are beautifully created with such a sense of detail that I knew that I had to try them myself immediately.
The cover photo for the book is of a chocolate cake with a chocolate ganache frosting. Chocolate shards create this Devil Wears Chocolate masterpiece. It’s rich and a great base to play with for creating your own twist. — After making the original recipe a couple of times, I decided to use the recipe as a base for a version with malted chocolate and raspberry additions.
The cake is a chocolate cake that uses boiling hot water. This sounds odd if you’ve never composed a cake using hot water, but works wonderfully with chocolate recipes that utilize cocoa in powder form by dissolving and incorporating it incredibly well. The cakes are baked until the structure is light and the finished base is very moist (apologies for this that hate the word… it just works for cakes).
The ganache is where I chose to incorporate the malt powder. Whipped ganache is a great frosting for chocolate cakes, I think. With chocolate, the warmth of the flavor can sometimes translate into it feeling less light than other flavors. Whipping ganache will aerate and add great contrast in texture and lightness to balance these cake layers. I’ve added freeze-dried raspberries into the ganache as well for a bit of tartness that I think pairs well with the toasty flavor of the malt powder and richness of the chocolate bomb.
All in all, this cake is a serious treat with an old school twist.
- 16 tablespoons (226 grams) butter, unsalted, room temp.
- 3 (150 grams) eggs, whole, large, room temp.
- ½ cups (300 grams) sugar, granulated white
- ⅔ cup (70 grams) cocoa powder, Dutch processed, unsweetened
- ⅔ cup (156 grams) water, boiling
- ⅓ cup (80 grams) sour cream
- 1 tablespoon (15 grams) vanilla bean paste or extract
- 1⅔ cups (235 grams) flour, all-purpose
- 1 tablespoon (12 grams) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (5 grams) salt, fine
- ½ teaspoon (3 grams) baking soda
- 1½ cups (300 grams) chocolate, chopped, semi-sweet
- ½ cup (100 grams) sugar, granulated white
- ⅔ cup (70 grams) cocoa powder, Dutch processed, unsweetened
- ½ teaspoon (5 grams) salt, fine
- 1 cup (235 grams) water, boiling
- 6 tablespoons (86 grams) butter, unsalted, room temp.
- ⅔ cup (160 grams) heavy cream
- ½ cup (60 grams) freeze dried raspberries, crushed or processed finely
- ¼ cup (40 grams) malted milk powder
- 1 cup raspberries, fresh
- powdered sugar, to finish
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Prepare two 8 inch cake pans with grease and parchment paper to line. I prefer a spring form cake pan for this.
- Soft together flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda. Set aside.
- In a heat-safe bowl, combine the cake cocoa powder and boiling water. Whisk very well until combined.
- Add sour cream and combine in bowl.
- Cream butter in mixer until lightened.
- Slowly add sugar and cream until smooth, about 5 minutes at higher (6-7) speed.
- Add one egg at a time, mixing completely between each.
- Rotating additions from dry to wet to dry to wet to ending with dry, add the flour and chocolate mixes to mix.
- Scrape well and ensure mixed well, but do not over-mix.
- Split between prepared pans and bake until knife comes out clean, about 30-40 minutes.
- Remove and cool completely, about an hour optimally.
- Combine ganache chocolate, sugar, cocoa powder, malt powder, and salt to a large heatproof bowl.
- Cover with boiling water and stir until fully incorporated.
- Let cool to room temperature.
- In mixer bowl, whip butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes at medium speed.
- Add cream and whip for another 2 minutes.
- Stream in slightly cooled ganache mixture and continue to whip for 2 more minutes.
- Add raspberry powder and mix well.
- Transfer to a bowl and chill for at least 30 minutes.
- Transfer cooled ganache back to mixing bowl and whip on high speed for 3-4 minutes.
- Layer cakes with ganache frosting and decorate as desired.
- Top with fresh raspberries and enjoy!
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Made this the other day, despite following directions to the t it turned out very dry and tasteless. Very expensive to make, and the whipped ganache didn’t turn out like it promised. Directions aren’t very clear, wast of time and money
Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately baking has tons of variables and can turn out differently in different hands and different kitchens.
You don’t say where to use the vanilla
I added the heavy whipping cream to the cake. Will it turn out?
Oops! — It may still taste ok, but will certainly be dense, I think. I’ll try to clarify earlier in the directions.
In the picture, it looks like you do a ganache drizzle on the top coating the whole top layer. I didn’t see anything about this in the instructions.
Yes. I did do that for a drip finish. I didn’t include this in the ingredients, but left it for the decorate as desired portion of the cake. If you want to make that ganache, I use a 1:1 recipe. It is very simple — 1 part heavy cream (eg: 8 ounces) and 1 part (8 ounces) chocolate. Heat the cream (don’t boil) to steaming and pour it over the chocolate. Let sit for a couple minute to soften and stir very gently. Fill a squeeze bottle (this this one) and have fun.
You list cream in the ingredients for the whipped ganache but don’t use it in the instructions. . .
You’ll find it in Step 5 of the ganache. Enjoy!
I hope you bring a couple of slices when we see you for lunch! Mom
Hah! If only some were left.