Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ribbons

Published by Devonport Chocolates on 19th Oct 2022

This is such an easy chocolate cake to make, super quick and a lot of fun. The chocolate ribbons take a little more time but are really rewarding to make. When we made this cake and the various photos/videos for it was over 30 degrees in our kitchen! This is far from ideal conditions to be working with chocolate. If we managed to make it work then so can you! Have fun and enjoy the fabulous comments when you are done. It would make an impressive Mother's Day treat or Birthday cake, hopefully someone will make it for you!

We made this as two seperate cakes for the layers, of course you can make it as one cake and cut in half, just adjust your cooking times. After I made it I also thought a layer or rapberry jam as well as the chocolate ganache would be delicious.

Ingredients

Cakes:

100g butter

2 tbsp golden syrup

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

200g sugar

315g flour

2 tsp baking powder

25g Devonport Chocolates Cocoa

2 tsp baking soda

375ml milk

Ganache for filling:

250ml cream

250g Devonport Chocolates 55% Cocoa Solids Chocolate Drops

Ganache for top:

250ml cream

250g Devonport Chocolates 55% Cocoa Solids Chocolate Drops

Chocolate ribbons:

250g Devonport Chocolates 55% Cocoa Solids Chocolate Drops (approximately)

Method

Making the cake:

Pre-prepare your cake tin(s) by lining with baking paper. I used two tins that were 20cm tins.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Place the butter and golden syrup in a saucepan and heat gently. Take off the heat and let cool a little then stir in the beaten egg. Mix well. Sift in the flour, baking powder and cocoa and mix. Lastly add the baking soda to the milk and then add to your cake mix. Gently stir to combine.

Split evenly into your two cake tins.
Bake for approximately 30 minutes but keep an eye on it, at 30 minutes mine was starting to get a touch dry. Bake until a skewer comes out clean.

Set aside to cool.

Making the ganache:
You make the ganache for the centre and topping exactly the same way, just leave longer in the fridge depending on the consistancy you would like.

Place cream in a saucepan on low. Bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and add your chocolate drops. Stir and stir and stir, you will see it slowly come together in the middle before spreading out and becoming a lovely smooth consistancy. Place in the fridge until it is perfect for using to sandwich your pieces of cake together. It needs to be spreadable but hold its shape. When you make the ganache for the top you may want to pour it which means it will need to be pourable, but firm enough to not completely run off the cake, or you might choose to whip it up a bit with a beater, pour over and then rough it up a bit for a textured, rustic look. (If I'm honest I did this to cover up a huge amount of imperfections with my cake!

Making Chocolate Ribbons:

Keep an eye out on our social channels for a video to go with these instructions.

To make these chocolate ribbons, I didn't re-temper my chocolate but used chocolate drops that are already tempered and didn't break that temper. (Devonport Chocolate's ones are pre-tempered)

Slice up pieces of baking paper.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a composite marble bench top in your kitchen, cover a chopping board in baking paper.

Sellotape your strips of baking paper on to your chopping board. (If you have a marble bench top you can sellotape the strips straight on to your bench top).

Place your chocolate drops in a microwave proof bowl and place in the microwave on medium power for 30 second bursts. Stir well between each burst. When your chocolate drops are 50% melted don't microwave anymore, just stir, and stir and stir. This will mean you don't break the temper of the chocolate.

Place two cardboard cylinders next to each other on a tray you can place in your fridge (I used two tinfoil rolls and anchored their ends down to a chopping board with sellotape).
Pour your chocolate over your baking papaer strips and smooth out.

Peel up each strip and place over your cylinders.

Place in the fridge, once the chocolate has started to pull away from the paper you can peel the paper off your ribbons.

Assembling the cake (this must be done when the cake is cold):

Sandwich your layers together with one lot of ganache. You might choose to add nuts or jam to the middle as well.

Whip up the other lot of ganache and pour over the top of the cake. As it sets create rustic swirls in the ganache with a knife or spoon.

Arrange your chocolate ribbons on top.

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