Go to the Recipe: Ultimate Chocolate Cake
Not my recipe, but I'll try to help you out.
This is a tricky one. Yes, buttermilk powder gives you the requisite flavor, and most importantly, acidity necessary for reacting with the baking soda in this recipe (though there is also double-acting baking powder in the formula). But the most overlooked part is viscosity: Reconstituted buttermilk is going to be thin and watery, while fresh buttermilk has a thicker texture that can have a significant effect on the spread and rise of baked goods (thick scones or buttermilk biscuits).
To approach that viscosity, you could try adjusting the recommended ratio of powder to liquid. I'd start with ~28-30g (5 tablespoons) buttermilk powder, blended into ~240g (1 cup) milk. You'd have to scale this ratio to get 340g of material, which puts you at: ~38g buttermilk powder dissolved in ~302g milk. I'd let this mixture sit for ~30min, then observe the consistency. Hopefully that gets you close to the right texture—but no guarantees here.
Thankfully, the cakes in this recipe are baked in cake pans, so spread is not really an issue so much as texture/rise. The batter as written looks fairly liquid, so if you go down this substitution path, I'd expect your batter to be looser than the written recipe.
Hope this helps!
If I wanted to use buttermilk powder instead of buttermilk how would I amend the recipe?
That's when you reach for the imitation vanilla in the way back of your cupboard. Keep the decent stuff for the frosting.
If you're ultra lazy, take your leftover batter and put it in a mug and microwave it for about 90 seconds. Viola.
I’m on my second go w this recipe- took about 45 mins to do all the steps this round (with the exception of assembly- too hot) which was what I thought it should take.
I’m super curious to taste the difference by not adding vanilla to the cake mix, because it’s expensive and because you basically bake it off and maybe simply going a little more heavy-handed with vanilla in the frosting? Anyone thinking like this?
Could i use a 8in cake with one springform pan or not
I made this cake for my husband’s birthday. As others have noted, this cake is very moist and delicate. As I applied the frosting, it completely fell apart in front of my eyes. I salvaged it by dumping it into a pretty bowl and serving it with a big spoon like a trifle. It was amazing! We couldn’t finish it all before leaving for a trip, so I wrapped it tightly and stored it in the freezer. A month later I defrosted it in the fridge and it was still just as good. Perhaps better!
I’ve actually found it easier to handle if you turn out the base on the cake stand, add the syrup, then the icing, turn out the next layer and add syrup, etc. rinse repeat
Add 10% flour to help firm things up. These are very delicate cakes to handle. Working with them very cold will also help when assembling.
I’ve made this cake more than a dozen times because it’s absolutely delicious. Super moist, deeply chocolatey. But I find it very difficult to work with. The cakes are so fragile that they fall apart when assembling them while frosting. I’m an experienced baker so I think I’m following the recipe correctly. Any advice for how I can get the cakes to firn up a bit?
I just pulled my cakes out of the oven. I’m at 4,500 ft above sea level and my suspicion is that for those at higher altitudes there is not quite enough flour in this recipe. My cakes are not domed and they even slightly collapsed in the center. I am an experienced baker and I followed the recipe to a T. I typically have to add extra flour to anything I bake in order for it to turn out right at my elevation. For instance, King Arthur flour considers 1 cup of cake flour to be 4.25 ounces. I have to up the amount of flour in their recipes to 5 ounces per cup. That means for this recipe instead of just 420 grams of flour I should have put 496 grams. I don’t know why I didn’t think to make this change before it was too late. That said, it is still delicious- it just needs more structure at my elevation. I would also personally skip the sugar syrup as the cake didn’t need it and was much too sweet. I did use the glycerol monostearate which probably made a difference. Also, if you plan to frost the cake the same way as chef steps does, you likely only need to make half the amount of frosting
The easiest thing you could do without changing the flavors too much would be to add more icing to the sides of the cake as to encase the actual cake with a layer of it. It should be good for about a week, then.
Up to 3 days, wrapped well. Most cakes that are covered in icing will keep for 7-10 days without being sliced into, since the icing preserves it. When a cake is exposed to air it reduces the shelf life. This cake does have help in the moisture department and will stay moist after 3 days for sure when well contained.
If I’m serving this cake on Saturday what’s the earliest I can prepare and have covered?
Can this be made ahead and frozen?
Hey I think the instructions were just written kind of confusing. I think you are pulling the cake when it hits that temp internally. Not baking it at that temperature.
I did this recipe and don’t know if something got lost or a missed a step. But leaving the cake for just 40 minutes at 96°C and it’s was fully raw needed to leave it for at least double the time to get it fully cooked. It’s tastes great though
Frosting
How long is this cake good for? Also, if I wanted to extend the shelf life, what changes could I make? Increased fat... certain chemicals... added sugar (not preferable as it would obviously change the flavor)... ?
Thanks!
For sure. You can bake this batter into any pan. Bake until it is done. Frost and serve in the pan is my suggestion.
Can I use a 9x13 pan instead to make a birthday cake?
Made this yesterday. I'm in the UK so cake flour was not an option, but I used sponge flour (which is very finely milled but still 9.3% protein) and I included the glycerol monostearate option. Everything else per the recipe except that I added the vodka early so the alcohol would boil off (was going to feed it to small children). It was everything I hoped it would be - absolutely magnificent, the sponge was light, soft and moist, and very chocolatey, even the frosting (which I usually find too sweet and/or too buttery) was bang on to my taste. I will most definitely be making this again, but probably only for occasions as it is super rich . Just having one in the same room as me is just too much temptation, and I can't really afford to buy larger clothes. P.S. Thank you for measurements in grams it's so much more specific than "cups" and "teaspoons".
Absolutely loved this! I’m an absolute beginner baker, and not much of an artist, but despite its appearance it tasted amazing!
1-3% and you can use for any cake you wish.
How can I use GMS in other cake recipes? Whats the ratio to flour or overall dry mix. Thanks! This is a great recipe!
Any 9" pans will work.
Do I have to use springform pans?
Hi there- i'm unable to download the recipe. Please help. Thanks
Got it thanks, not sure why that measure was scaling. Really if you want to stick to a 3 layer cake just weight the total batter and divide it by 3.
I think I found a real bug this time. The scaling weight per pan changes 300g for ½ time and 2.4K for 4 time. Just FYI;
Thanks for that, I didn't catch that divided part, my mistake. I am using a web browser and and app on my iPhone
Hello John, Did you divide the salt as described in step 3 and 12? Part of the salt is for the cake and the rest is for the icing. This brings the salt percentage to the 3.5% as you stated in the iPhone picture(which is very fuzzy). I checked the mobile on my iPhone and it says 25 grams of salt, divided on top ingredient list, 15 grams for the dry mix, and 10 grams for the icing.
Thanks for flagging that to us. One questions, are you using the old chefsteps app? or is it on a web browser on your iPhone?
there is a discrepancy between the iPhone version and the desktop version on the salt. My iPhone says 15g salt to 420g cake flour which is 3.5% Bakers percentage which is a little high but on the desktop version it is 25g salt to 420g cake flour 5.9% salt which is way over the bakers percentage standard of 2 to 4% salt. I made this cake yesterday from the desktop version and it was uneditable I have made it before and it was great. I was perplexed so I wanted to try it again today to see what I did wrong and I discover this discrepancy. I think yesterday I made a 2x batch 50g to 840g
Hi Margaret! You will want to bake at 300 °F, and aim for a core temperature of the cake of 205 °F. In a 300 °F oven, it typically takes about 40 minutes for the cake to reach that temperature at the core.
The video of the Ultimate Chocolate Cake says to bake the cake at 300F / 150C for 40 mins. BUT the recipe says 205F / 96C for 40 mins???
I was hoping you could help me with my recurring cake baking problem…. My cake always get this huge and cracked dome every time I bake. I know the obvious and easy solution to this will be trimming the cake afterwards but I don’t to have such expensive waste anymore. Can you guys help me out with this problem? Is there any fool-proof solution to this? I already tried the wet cloth ring around the mould but my cake is the overly domed and cracked.
I did this cake Milk Bar style for my daughter’s birthday. Subbed the syrup for a chocolate milk soak, with chocolate crumbles and chocolate shavings. Fantastic!
Try baking cupcakes at 350°F for better reaction with the baking powder. Another note is to bang the pan once removed from the oven to knock out any extra air and make a denser cake. Fill the molds 75% full. Bake them until they spring back when pressed. Usually cupcakes take 15-18 minutes to bake but as a general rule you always bake things until they are done. This could be a minute more or less depending on any particular oven/pre-heat/batter load. They may take 20 minutes to bake and it is really key to bake until done, time is a guideline only.
When baking cupcakes with leftover batter, what temperature, how much batter per cupcake and how long should I bake them for? I can never get them to come out right
Para brasileiros: coloquem no máximo 5g de sal!
For brazilians: put a maximum 5g of salt!
