If you’re after a dense fudgey sort of chocolate cake recipe, come again another time! This is a moist and bouncy chocolate cake with rich chocolate and coffee notes.
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This is a true favourite of mine after discovering the tang mian method of baking cakes. The tang mian/cooked dough method creates a moist and light cottony texture by coating the flour with fat before adding anything else. By coating the flour with fats, it inhibits the formation of gluten. This means a beautifully fluffy bite that melts in your mouth. (More on the science of it here).
By cooking the instant coffee with the cocoa powder, it creates a roasted coffee aroma in the cake. It also brings out the darker chocolate notes in the cake, which I love but feel free to use decaf or omit the coffee altogether.
This chocolate cake pairs beautifully with dalgona icing, as strawberries and cream cake or dress it up with your favourite buttercream.
Chocolate cake (tang mian method)
Ingredients
Tang mian mixture
- 65 g oil
- 30 g cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tsp coffee
- 200 g milk
- 60 g sugar
Egg yolk mixture
- 6 yolks
- 175 g cake flour
- 1 pinch salt
Egg white mixture
- 6 egg whites
- 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
- 135 g sugar
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a small saucepan using low-med heat. Add cocoa powder and instant coffee. Be sure to stir constantly to avoid burning. You know it's ready when you can smell the beautiful aroma wafting up.
- Add the milk and sugar and take the saucepan off the heat.
- Add the egg yolks in one at a time, whisking between each one.
- Sift in the cake flour and add salt. Whisk until smooth.
- In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until foamy and add the cream of tartar. Add the sugar in batches and whisk until the egg whites reach stiff peaks.
- Preheat oven to 150ºC and prepare your hot water bath.
- Add one third of the egg white to the yolk batter and mix well. Using a spatula, fold the remaining egg white in two batches. Do so gently and thoroughly so no streaks of egg white remain.
- Pour the batter into the cake pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Tap pan against the tabletop to get rid of any large air bubbles.
- Put the cake pan into the hot water bath, ensuring that the water height reaches at least a third of the cake pan.
- Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour 20min or until a skewer inserted in the centre of cake comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and tap the pan against the tabletop a few times to prevent shrinkage. Transfer to cool on a wire rack pan for 10min before unmoulding.
