It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m making an elegant and easy chocolate cake. It’s a triple chocolate cake with Devil’s food cake mix, chocolate pudding mix and chocolate chips. And I am icing the cake with burnt sugar icing which has a touch of caramel flavor. Perfect for chocolate lovers.
Chocolate Cake for Chocolate Lovers
This chocolate cake is for anyone who loves chocolate. It is quick and easy using a Devil’s food boxed cake mix for starters. The chocolate pudding makes this a very moist cake–really a “pudding cake.” And Hershey’s chocolate chips add a bit of intense chocolate “bites of flavor”.
Here are the ingredients. The recipe is adapted from the Allrecipe internet site. “Too Much Chocolate Cake” is the name of their recipe.
Burnt Sugar Icing
Caramel pairs well with chocolate. I’ve always wanted to make a burnt sugar icing. After you burn the sugar on the stove, the icing has a nice caramel flavor. Here are the ingredients for the icing.
To make the icing. you literally burn the sugar on the stove. Heat sugar in a heavy skillet or sauce pan over low to moderate heat.
As the sugar heats, it melts and carmelizes. Watch closely because once the sugar starts to turn brown it rapidly burns. I didn’t pay attention and the sugar burnt to a dark brown.
In this case, start over. Here is my second try. It is a nicely caramelized sugar with water added to make syrup.
Add the syrup to butter which has been whipped with a mixer along with powdered sugar, vanilla extract and a bit of salt. Here’s the caramel icing.
Icing the Cake
For me, the most difficult part of making a cake is icing it. Icing the top isn’t so difficult but getting icing on the sides is never easy. So I’m making a “naked” cake– one that doesn’t have the sides iced. This seems to be a current trend, and I like it.
To ice the cake, put the first layer on the cake stand with the top facing down and the flat bottom up. After adding icing, it’s easy to put the second layer on “right side up.” Then the layer’s won’t slide around.
I added caramel icing to the top and left the sides exposed. Pecan pieces made an easy decoration.. Here’s my cake! Perfect for a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner.
Since I’m using a recipe from Allrecipes.com, I’ve reprinted the original recipe without amy modifications. I baked the cake in two 9″ cake pans rather than a Bundt pan. For baking times, my cake layers took 30 minutes to bake at 350 degrees.
Chocolate Lover's Cake with Burnt Sugar Icing, a.k.a. Too Much Chocolate Cake by Denise
Cake:
- 1-18.25 oz package devil’s food cake mix
- 1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 2 cups (1-12 oz package) semisweet chocolate chips
Method and Steps:
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs and water. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour batter into a well greased 12 cup bundt pan. (I used two 9″ cake pans)
- Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until top is springy to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cake thoroughly in pan at least an hour and a half before inverting onto a plate. If desired, dust the cake with powdered sugar. (I baked two well-oiled 9″ cake pan layers for 30 minutes and iced layers with burnt sugar icing.)
Recipe or submitted by Denise. Copyright © by Allrecipes.com . Used with permission from www.Allrecipes.com
For Burnt Sugar Icing:
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 lb powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup pecan pieces
- To make syrup, add 3/4 cup sugar to heavy skillet or sauce pan over medium heat. Shake pan occasionally until sugar turns light brown. Remove from heat and carefully pour in 3/4 cup water. Stirring constantly, return to medium heat and cook and stir until sugar and mixes with water. If sugar hardens, keep stirring until it melts and mixes with water.
- To make icing, add 1/4 cup butter to small mixer bowl of mixer. Beat on high speed until butter is creamy. Add 1 pound powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 cup caramel syrup. Beat and mix until creamy smooth and spreadable. If icing is too stiff, add additional syrup by the tablespoon.
To ice cake: Place first cake layer on cake stand, top side down and bottom flat side up. Spread with a thin layer of burnt sugar icing almost to the edges. Add top layer, round side up and flat bottom side down. Ice with burnt sugar icing. Sprinkle pecan pieces on top for decoration.