Moist Chocolate Cake with Mocha Whipped Cream Frosting

My son's 2.5 month long summer vacations started today. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was totally dreading it - keeping an overactive 4.5 year old entertained is no easy task. I did not think that I will be frosting a cake today, let alone blog about it! But Day 1 went surprisingly well. I whipped up the frosting and frosted while the son watched Ice Age on TV. I had asked my parents to baby-sit him on Skype when I cooked in the morning while watching a video- workshop on Food Photography. So my little boy went on a painting (water color) spree while chatting with his grandparents. 

With his TV-time being restricted to 1 hour a day now, I have to squeeze in as much work as possible into that precious one hour (most days Skype sessions do not last more than 10 minutes). Today however I had a bonus half an hour (the movie was a 90 minute one) and I put it to good use! 

I had baked the cake earlier this week (on Monday, today is Thursday), let it cool in the pan, brushed the cake with a mixture of simple sugar syrup and coffee granules, wrapped it up in a cling wrap and refrigerated it in an airtight container. You can use your favorite Chocolate Cake recipe or even a box mix. I baked mine in 2 six-inches baking pans since I had plans of baking a triple layer cake - one was a regular pan and the other one was a springform pan to be cut into half (deeper than the regular pan). You can use an 8 inch pan and cut your cake into 3 separate layers. Ultimately, I had to settle for a double layer cake as the husband and the 4.5 year old insisted that they wanted chocolate cake right away. So the cake baked in the regular 6-inch pan got devoured with dollops of chocolate ganache spread on it. Yup, we finished it all at one go!

This particular recipe does not use butter and oil, so do not be alarmed by the number of eggs!

Ingredients: 

For the Cake:

• Cake Flour - 1/2 Cup (See notes below)
• Sugar - 3/4 Cup
• Eggs - 6 large, at room temperature
• Cocoa Powder - 2 tbsp
• Baking Powder - 1 tbsp
• Instant Coffee Granules - 1/4 tsp
• Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

For the Filling + Frosting:

• Heavy Whipping Cream: 1 Cup, cold
• Sugar - 2 tbsp
• Cocoa Powder - 2 tbsp
• Vanilla Extract - 1/2 tsp
• Instant Coffee Granules - 1 tsp

For the Simple Syrup: Mix equal parts of water and sugar along with 1/8 tsp of coffee granules (or a fat pinch) and simmer till all the sugar dissolves. 

Things to keep in mind:

• Make sure that the cake is completely chilled before you start frosting it.
• Chill the bowl in which you will be whipping your frosting in along along with the whisk attachment.
• The heavy whipping cream should be cold.
• Always crumb coat your cake before frosting it, so factor in an extra half an hour time.

Baking the Cake:

Preheat oven to 400F. Grease your pan(s) with butter. Cut out parchment paper circles in the size of your pan(s) and line your pan(s) with it. Place on a cookie sheet and set aside.

In a medium bowl, sift together the cake flour (notes below), cocoa powder, baking powder and coffee granules and set aside.

In a larger bowl, beat together the eggs, vanilla extract and sugar for about 8-10 minutes till it becomes light and fluffy. 

Scoop in the flour mixture little by little into wet mixture while beating it the whole time for about 3-4 minutes. 

Pour the batter into your prepared pan(s) and let it sit for few minutes on the cookie sheet before sticking it in the oven. 

Reduce the oven temperature to 375F.

Bake it for 20-25 minutes and check for done-ness by inserting a toothpick in the middle. It should come out clean.

Let it cool in the pan before taking it out. 

Peel off the parchment paper.

Brush with the simple sugar mixture.

Let it sit for sometime.

Wrap it using a cling wrap and store in an airtight container in the fridge. 

Chill it completely before frosting.

Frosting the Cake: (Yielded about 2 Cups, Double recipe if you are frosting a bigger cake - this was enough for my l

In the chilled bowl whisk together the sugar, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, coffee granules along with 2 tbsp of cold whipping cream till everything dissolves. Add the rest of the cold whipping cream and using a wire whisk attachment, whisk it for 5 minutes or so, increasing the power every 1.5 to 2 minutes till you see stiff peaks. Refrigerate the frosting if you are not using it immediately. 

Decorating the Cake:

Using a sharp knife cut the cake in 2 or 3 equal parts. Place the bottom layer on a cake board (use a doily if you want). I always stick strips of parchment paper between the cake and cake board which you can pull out later. It just makes room for mistakes and you can get rid of the mess by getting rid of the parchment papers. Add dollops of whipped cream between the layers and stack them up neatly. Crumb coat the cake all around by spreading just a  thin layer of whipped cream using an offset spatula. Don't worry if there are crumbs. Chill the cake for at least 30 minutes. This will ensure that the final icing is smoother.
Once the cake had chilled and crumb coat set, I slathered frosting all around the cake. Using a decorating comb I scraped off the excess frosting from the sides which also gave it the cool groove-y look. (Find the decorator comb here or you can use this)

Now decorate the cake the way you want. I used a 1M frosting tip and decorated with chocolate chips. 

Notes: To make 1 Cup Cake Flour you need to substitute 2 tbsp of flour with 2 tbsp of cornflour and sift 5 to 6 times. 

Cake Recipe adapted from here!
Frosting Recipe adapted from here!