Dark Chocolate Espresso “Donut” with Ganache Glaze, Gilded Chocolate-Covered Espresso Beans, and Raspberry Whipped Cream
Monday, January 28th, 2008This is a deep, dark chocolate cake glazed with bittersweet chocolate ganache, piped with raspberry whipped cream frosting, and sprinkled with chopped chocolate-covered espresso beans rolled in edible gold dust. It’s a decadent, uber-chocolate cake that is both bittersweet and luxurious.
Chocolate Cake:
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup organic sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 cup of strong brewed black coffee
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup soy creamer (what I had on hand), but milk or buttermilk would be fine
6 oz butter
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
For the Chocolate Ganache:
10 oz bittersweet chocolate
12 oz heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter
For the Whipped Cream Topping (optional):
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 ounces pureed raspberries
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 gram gelatin powder
red gel food coloring (optional)
For decorative topping:
Chocolate covered espresso beans, chopped, rolled in
Edible gold powder (available at nycake.com or other online baking supply store)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and line a 9″x13″ pan with parchment paper. Melt butter and chopped chocolate into hot brewed coffee. Add soy creamer or milk, vanilla extract and espresso powder and mix. Set aside. Sift together rest of dry ingredients and place in mixing bowl. Add slightly beaten eggs and wet ingredients, and mix all until combined.
Pour into baking pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until toothpick/cake tester just comes out clean. Do not overbake! Let cool on wire rack. After 10 minutes, remove from pan and let cool completely on wire rack. Once cool, cut out six large circles with six small circles within to resemble “donut holes”. I used a 3 1/2″ circle cutter for the outer circle and a 3/4″ cutter for the inner one.
Prepare the ganache. Chop the bittersweet chocolate finely and place in bowl. Heat heavy cream until boiling and immediately pour over chopped chocolate. Let sit for a minute, then stir until ganache is combined. Add butter and stir. Pour ganache over “donuts” with a spoon or ladle and coax it over the sides. I coated them twice for a smoother finish. Let cool and firm up in the refrigerator.
In the meantime, prepare raspberry whipped cream. It’s easy to make your own raspberry puree for the whipped cream. Bring frozen raspberries and sugar to a boil. The raspberries will liquefy. Force through a strainer with the back of a spoon. Dissolve gelatin into the puree and let sit for a few minutes. The gelatin will make the whipped cream much more stable to work with. I then heated it in the microwave for a few seconds and let cool. Whip heavy cream just until soft peaks form. Add the cooled raspberry puree into heavy cream and whip until firm. I added a drop of gel food coloring to boost the color.
Once the ganache firmed, I piped the raspberry whipped cream in a decorative pattern onto ganache-glazed donut cake. Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, I piped a pattern resembling hearts.
For a luxurious look, I chopped chocolate covered espresso beans, rolled them into edible gold dust, and sprinkled them over the whipped cream. A tiny bit of this dust goes a long way.
For a less frilly “girly” cake, I omitted the pink frosting and came up with the following. I was really pleased with the effect of the gold-dusted espresso beans; it was kind of like *bling* for my donut.
This recipe made six donut cakes, with plenty of cake scraps to snack on. I actually heated the cake scraps in the microwave the next day, and it was absolutely tender and delicious warmed. It tasted somewhat like a lava cake (without the oozing part).