The best eggless chocolate birthday cake recipe

Ingredients

• All purpose flour - 250 g
• Condensed milk - 400 g
• Chocolate essence - 2 tsp
• Cocoa powder - 0.5 cup
• Drinking chocolate powder - 4 tbsp
• Baking powder - 2 tsp
• Baking soda - 2 tsp
• Powdered sugar - 4 tbsp
• Softened butter - 120 g
• Milk - 0.5 cup
• ...SYRUP... Water - 0.75 cup
• Coffee powder - 3 tsp
• Sugar - 3 tsp
• ...CHOCOLATE GANACHE... Chopped dark chocolate - 500 g
• Cream - 2 cups
• Butter - 2 tbsp

Instructions

The cake

1. Pre-heat your oven at 180°C for at least 10 minutes.
2. Grease two cake moulds of the same size, with butter and dust with little cocoa powder.
3. Sieve all the dry ingredients i.e. all purpose flour, drinking chocolate, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and powdered sugar. Keep this aside.
4. In a bowl, whisk the condensed milk with an electric beater for 5-7 minutes. Add the butter to this and whisk together till the mixture is lighter in color.
5. Now gently fold the dry ingredients mixture and milk into this, adding only a little bit at a time.
6. Add the chocolate essence and mix the batter gently one last time.
7. Pour the batter equally in the cake moulds.
8. Bake at 180°C for 30-35 minutes or till completely baked. Check by inserting a skewer or knife. It should come out clean, without any crumbs attached to it.
9. Take them out of the oven and let them rest for 10 minutes.
10. Dust a board with powdered sugar and turn the cakes upside down on the board.
11. After 15 minutes or so, carefully cut the cakes horizontally into two parts and keep them aside.

The syrup

1. Microwave the water, sugar and coffee powder for 30 seconds or till the sugar is completely dissolved. Let this liquid mixture cool down completely.

The chocolate ganache

1. Heat the cream in a non stick pan over medium heat. Turn off the gas when bubbles start forming.
2. Quickly pour this over chopped dark chocolate and butter.
3. Wait for 30 seconds and mix this mixture till the chocolate and butter are completely melted wit h the cream.
4. Refrigerate this for an hour.

And finally, assembling the cake

1. Take one part of the cake, completely moisten it with the prepared coffee syrup with the help of a spoon.
2. Now spread chocolate ganache on this layer of cake.
3. Place another part of the cake and repeat till the end.
4. Cover the rest of the cake with the ganache and decorate it with leftover ganache and whatever you like on your cake!

Recipe Notes

All the ingredients except for the dark chocolate must be at room temperature. Add more cocoa powder if you think the cake batter isn't dark or chocolaty enough. Do not hesitate to add a little bit extra powdered sugar in the cake batter if you like your cake to be sweeter.

Recipe by

G Vaishnavi