Chocolate Buttermilk Cake - Again!

You know me. When I like a particular cake, I will feature it again. It's clear from my archives which cakes I favour. :) This is one of them.

In my last post, I shared a Marble Cake recipe which I thought was absolutely delightful. I noticed though, that my children were fighting mainly for the chocolatey bits (good heavens!), and so I promised to bake them a chocolate cake next. Well, here it is today.

I wanted to make Tish Boyle's Chocolate Buttermilk Cake again, but this time in "whole cake" version. The last time I baked them, I used a Bundt-lette pan, just as she stated in her recipe, and got 6 mini loaves. I can now understand the rationale behind this.

This cake, when baked in a 7-inch pan, took double the baking time! I waited forever, while the cake took its own sweet time. Ah, the smell of a chocolate cake baking is pure heaven, and the waiting is sheer torture. My children came in and out of the kitchen countless times, harassing me for cake. Yes, harass.

Luckily, I had earlier saved some of the batter and poured them into 3 cupcake cups. So while the big cake was baking away, the smaller cupcakes were done in about 18mins, and I could throw them to my hungry mob and beg them to "please leave me alone now". True story.

Anyway, when the cake was finally done, it was dinner time, so I left it on a cooling rack at room temperature, until the next day. Then I sliced it and oohed at the sight of its velvety interior. Just take a closer look:


See what I mean? So soft and moist!

As I took photos, my children again circled me like vultures, asking for cake. My big boy said, "I tasted the cupcake yesterday and it was sooo delicious!" Special emphasis on the "sooo". Awwww! How sweet is that? Of course I hurried up and got my photos done so that they could eat. And eat we all did. It was the perfect chocolate cake ... and I am using the word "perfect" unabashedly. :)

I did not make changes to the recipe, save for 2 things: I chopped the chocolate a bit coarser, and cut down the sugar to 220g.

If you are using semi-sweet chocolate, I think you can further reduce the sugar by another 10 or 20g. I used Valrhona Caraïbe 66%, so I decided to err on the side of sweet, and it turned out to be just nice for us.

Oh, one other thing! If you intend to make a whole cake like I did, you need to adjust the temperature. I baked at 175°C for the first 30 minutes. After that, I lowered the temperature to 160°C for the next 40 minutes. Test with a skewer at round the 1 hour-mark. I also tented my cake throughout the entire baking time. This is important, because I can guarantee you a burnt top if you do not do this.


I managed to snap a photo of the batter! Gorgeous, isn't that? It reminded me of creamy melted ice cream. :) Fold in the chopped chocolate after this, and you're ready to bake!


Here's the reward for waiting. Enjoy!

Recipe can be found here. Please use good quality chocolate for the best results. For Singapore readers who want to know, I buy my Valrhona cocoa and chocolate from Sun Lik.