Black Tie Chocolate Affair
I truly, madly, deeply love Red Velvet Cake. It’s not quite my favorite – that award stays with my chock full of yumminess Carrot Cake, but it’s up there. I love the look of it, the flavor of it, and of course, the uniqueness of it.
Lately though, I just can’t bring myself to pour two bottles of red dye into a cake – not since becoming much more conscious of what makes up most of the shelf foods we eat. I did find a beautiful rendition of this cake using beets I had planned to try, but didn’t want to experiment on Valentine’s Day. Since, truthfully, the only purpose in the dye is for coloring, it can easily be omitted.
Chocolate Velvet Cheesecake Cake
This five layer cake is heaven sent. It is a great holiday dessert, (Valentine’s day ♥) a wow someone you love dessert, copy cat Cheesecake factory dessert, or indulge yourself dessert.
You have many excuses to eat this cake!
Mix together until light and fluffy
Beat until thoroughly mixed
Pour batter into two 9″ round springform pans lined with parchment paper
Bake at 325° F, 20 minutes, or just until cake is set
Allow to cool completely then remove outer rim of springform pan
Place cakes inside freezer
Beat until batter changes to lighter color
Add
1 cup buttermilk
Add
1 ½ cups flour
Mix just until ingredients are mixed in
Evenly divide batter between three 9″ round pans lined with parchment paper
Bake at F350° for 25 minutes, or until cake springs back to the touch
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Beat until soft, creamy and spreadable
Assemble cake beginning and ending with chocolate layers, and alternate with cheesecake layers
Apply a thin layer of frosting between each layer
Apply crumb coating to outside and top of cake, then frost cake with remaining frosting
I'm really excited to make this 5 layers of deliciousness! what is the crumb coating you refer to? What kind of chocolate shavings do you use?
Hi Shauna! I just used the same frosting to apply a crumb coat since the cake was chocolate and the frosting was white I just wanted to ensure no crumbs bled through. There is enough frosting to apply a light skim coat and then finish with a thick outer layer.
As for the chocolate shavings, I just grated some a big brick of chocolate on the outside of the cake immediately after frosting. I angled the hand grater (or you could use a zester) at an angle that they fell on the cake.
Have fun with it, it's a truly delicious cake! Thanks for reading!
the Chocolate cake turned out so horribly dry… it was depressing because it was a lot of effort to make all these layers. not sure what happened… just giant let down for party. now I have a giant cake… any ideas how to rescue it? I hate wasting!
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that! How disappointing! If you live at very low altitude you may need to decrease your flour by a 1/2 cup or so – or it could be your baking time. This cake should not be dry.
To salvage your cake, I would crumble the cake into a large bowl and mix it with the cheesecake layers. Add enough frosting just until the taste and texture is to your likely. (Essentially you will be making cake bites.) Form bite size balls out of the mixtures, and dip in melted chocolate or nuts, and let set.
Alternatively, you could just mix the frosting with the chocolate cake and spread the layers on top of the cheesecake layers like frosting. You could then make extra frosting and decorate the cake as shown.
I hope that helps!