Black Dahlia Cake

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I was excited when my fellow Sweet Adventurers (84th & 3rd, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader, Dining With a Stud, and this months host, Christina from The Hungry Australian) and I settled on the theme of Death By Chocolate for this months blog hop. Chocolate would easily have to be one of my favourite indulgences, as I am sure you can tell by all of the chocolate recipes featured here ( such as Mint Slice Cookies, Chocolate Orange Cake, Chocolate Pots de Creme, Wicked Chocolate Orange Cookies, Black Forest Cake and Cherry Ripe Cake, to name a few) so I couldn’t wait to explore this months theme.

Despite my excitement it took me some time to settle on what I actually wanted to make….and well, what you see here, my creation which I’ve called my “Black Dahlia Cake”, evolved while I was in the kitchen. What started from a simple super rich chocolate cake evolved into a multi layered chocolate creation.

When I think of the words Death By Chocolate I think of chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. I think we all do. So I flicked through my library of cookbooks for inspiration, and searched online, but I couldn’t really find anything that fit my vision. Eventually, at a loss for ideas, I settled on the “Little Black Dress Cake” from Valli Little’s delicious Simply The Best. I had my on making this cake for some time, and given this months blog hop theme I felt it was the perfect excuse….but at the back of my mind I couldn’t help but feel it didn’t really say death by chocolate to me.

Add to this the fact that the cake needed an extra 20 minutes cooking time in my oven, and came out looking like the site of a meteor landing, complete with crunchy edges, I had visions of having to start all over again! After some careful knife work, the top half of the crater was removed to reveal a flat, and insanely rich and moist cake. So rich because it includes half a kilogram of chocolate!!!! Now that’s my type of chocolate cake!!!

After staring at the cake for some time knowing my vision wasn’t fulfilled I decided to add a chocolate mousse layer on top. Why have one layer of chocolate when you can have two?! For the chocolate mousse layer l used a recipe from Raymond Blanc. After the chocolate mousse had set overnight I then smothered the whole cake in a chocolate glaze. Third layer of chocolate done!

As much as I love meltingly soft cakes and desserts, I also love texture, and I felt my creation needed some crunch. For the crunch factor I settled on the idea of chocolate lace cookies, and as the cookies cooled I wrapped them around my rolling pin to provide some curl. The funny thing was I wasn’t quite sure how I would incorporate the cookies into my final creation yet!! After playing with the lace cookies trying to work out what I could do I placed the cookies in a circle and thought they looked like the petals of a flower. The center of my flower was then formed with sugared blueberries and my Death by Chocolate Black Dahlia Cake was born.

So, after all of this how does it taste? Well, in a word…AMAZING!!! Even if I do say so myself. Deliciously rich and moist chocolate cake topped with chocolate mousse and smothered in chocolate glaze….it was all of my chocolate fantasies come true! Don’t get me wrong, it’s rich, INSANELY rich….but isn’t that what Death By Chocolate Cake is all about?

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