Wholemeal and totally wicked Chocolate Cake
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April in my family is a cake heavy month. With four birthdays in the span of 3 weeks, there is so much cake that at the end of it, I vow never to eat cake again. Not for long though, come May and I am already baking well into the winter months. Every few months, we have a serious hankering for good chocolate cake and I always turn to my trusted Donna Hay Heirloom Chocolate Cake recipe. This time around I was feeling really adventurous and after Heidi’s Basic Chocolate Cake recipe started doing the rounds on the internet, I knew it was time to go wholemeal. I have never baked a cake with wholemeal flour, so I was essentially running blind. I have created recipes out of thin air before, judging the quantity of ingredients and the ingredients themselves as I went along. But it has never been so much fun. I replaced plain flour with wholemeal flour, the milk with light evaporated milk, the full cream in the ganache with light pouring cream and the caster sugar with demerara sugar. The cake that resulted out of the marriage of these adventurous ingredients was the best fudgy mudcake I have ever had. And it was so simple, I could’ve cried.
Wholemeal Chocolate Cake
[Preparation Time : 15 minutes/ Baking Time : 45 minutes/ Serves : 10]
Ingredients
For The Cake
2 cups wholemeal flour
2 tbsp baking powder
4 tbsp cocoa powder
2 cups demerara sugar
1 cup light evaporated milk
250 butter, softened
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cafe´ liquer essence [optional]
For The Ganache
300ml light pouring cream
300g dark couverture chocolate [I use Nestle´ Plaistowe]
Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line an 8 inch round springform pan with baking paper.
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Blend with an electric blender for 5-8 minutes until creamy and fluffy. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for approximately 45 minutes until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan.
While the cake is baking, heat pouring cream in a heavy-bottomed saucepan till it starts bubbling on low heat. Add the chocolate and stir continuously for about 5 minutes till the ganache is glossy and smooth. Cool in saucepan. Pour over cooled cake. Cover frosted cake pan with aluminium foil and chill for an hour before serving. This helps the ganache to set.
Great job lightening this up!! I love playing with things to make them healthier. Can’t wait to try this!
This looks right up my alley–how much butter is that?
Sorry about that. It is grams. I fixed it
[...] Wholemeal Chocolate Cake from Gel’s [...]
That looks great, but I don’t like the small slice. Can I have the bigger portion?
This looks so good, *I* want to cry!
Thanks for the recipe! I found another good one at pandalous. It’s here: http://www.pandalous.com/nodes/chocolate_cake_recipe
What an excellent wholemeal recipe!! The chocolate cake looks decadent & grand!
MMMMMMMMMMM,…would love to eat 1 big slice this morining!
.-= Sophie´s last blog ..Eggless wholemeal spelt, banana & coconut breakfast muffins =-.
Hi Honey!
What a beautiful recipe, thank you for sharing!
I love it so much I’ve included it the “Top 21 Chocolate Cake recipe posts on twitter”
Keep up the good work!
Love,
Bridge
.-= Bridget´s last blog ..21 Twitalicious Chocolate Cake Recipes You Need To Try =-.
Hi. So… I have been searching for a wholemeal cupcake recipe, and dropped them into cupcakes, and they’re in the oven at the moment (very early in the morning). I have tried to make some cupcakes for my husband on his birthday to take to work, I am about 10 days late but I think the long search is over! I have also converted commercial icing for ganache. It’s a far yummier idea! Oh… because I try and work mainly with whole foods, I used cream instead of evaporated milk.
I hope they turned out great!
I’m baking this cake now! but the cake is rised over the rim of my pan!
I wonder if 2 tbsp of baking powder is too much?
Thanks!
Hi Sneh,
I just made the cake and yes you are so true it is totally wicked…. the kids loved it and it is wholemeal !!!
I totally love your blog.
Thanks Ummu! Glad it turned out well for you
This cake looks sooo yummy!!!
Najwa Kronfel´s last [type] ..Ratatouille
Hi I’d really love to make this recipe, the thought of using wholemeal flour makes this recipe so intriguing. My only hesitation is the amount of sugar. I’m not used to using a lot of sugar in my baking and was wondering if this could be reduced? Perhaps to 1 or 1 1/2 cups?
Can’t wait to try this recipe!
Just wondering if I could substitute the evaporated milk for ordinary milk?
And what is dark couverture chocolate? Can I use ordinary dark chocolate?
You could substitute regular milk, although the taste might be slightly different. Yes, regular dark chocolate is fine too.
Absolutely amazing!!! I always use wholemeal flour for pretty much everything, so it is a real challenge to find a recipe that allows the cake to rise properly. Just took this out of the oven, it’s the tallest cake I’ve ever made! Haven’t even tried it yet, but smells wonderful! Thankyou
wonderful!! glad to hear it