The Perfect Chocolate Mud Cake - dense, moist and delicious

After attending the Melbourne Cake Bake and Sweets Show and sampling some truly life-changing chocolate mud cake, I was determined to find the perfect recipe I could make myself.  I'm glad to say that I think I've found it!

This cake is beautifully chocolatey, dense and decadent, is moist all the way throughout and keeps very well.  Topped off with some ganache, it is even more delicious.

Recipe adapted from: Family Circle via Through My Kitchen Window
Ingredients (large 23 cm (9 inch) round cake or 21 x 31 cm (8 x 12 inch) sheet cake)
2 tbsp instant coffee granules
185mL hot water
250g butter
250g dark chocolate
550g caster sugar
300g flour
2 tsp baking powder
60g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
4 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
125mL milk

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 140 - 150C (280 - 300F).  Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin with baking paper, ensuring that the baking paper extends above the top of the tin.  Alternatively, you can use multiple cake tins if you're making a layer cake, or brownie tins if you're making a sheet cake.  I have used the full amount of this recipe in two square brownie tins which worked really well!

Greasing the tin before lining it will make the baking paper stick to the tin and cooperate for you

2. Dissolve the coffee granules in the hot water.

3. Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave until all parts are melted.  Add the sugar and coffee, stir until combined.  Set aside to cool.

4. In your mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and bicarb soda.  Make sure to sift the cocoa for a lump-free batter!

5. Add the eggs, oil and milk to the flour mixture and mix until combined.  I used the paddle on my Kitchenaid for this part.  You should end up with a pretty thick batter after this step.

6. Add half the chocolate mixture to the batter and mix until smooth and combined.

7. Add the remaining chocolate mixture to the batter and mix until completely smooth.  The batter should be of a pouring consistency.

8. Pour the batter into the lined baking tin/s you are using, and bake in the preheated oven for about 1 3/4 hours.  Depending on the thickness of your cake, this can be a shorter time - but will most likely be over 1 hour.  Make sure that you check using a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake.  It should come out with some crumbs on it - you want this mud cake to be very moist inside!

9. Let the cake cool in the tin.  Once cool, take it out of the tin and remove all the baking paper lining.

10. Using a serrated knife, level the cake to your satisfaction.
The first time I made this cake, I made half a batch of the recipe and baked it in a 20cm round tin for about 1 1/4 hours - it turned out beautifully but a bit sunken in the middle, so there were lots of off-cuts.  (I'm not complaining!)

11. Serve the cake as desired.  I recommend using a healthy amount of ganache (2:1 chocolate to cream ratio by weight).

Here are some snaps of the sheet cake version I made, again topped with ganache - kind of like brownies but more cakey and a little more, dare I say, sophisticated.  Props for the strawberry stacking arrangement go to my Mum!

Enjoy!