Rich, Moist and Dense eggless chocolate cake filled with luscious, smooth and creamy whipped chocolate ganache, this Eggless Dutch Truffle Cake is every chocolate lover's dream.
Line and prepare the cake pans and pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
Start by sifting the dry ingredients - Flour, Cocoa powder, Baking powder, Baking soda and salt. Set this aside.
In a saucepan, melt together the butter, milk and chopped chocolate until the butter and chocolate is all melted and the milk just begins to boil. Switch off and set this aside.
In a mixing bowl, beat together the yogurt and sugar until combined and homogenous.
Now start alternating between the dry and wet ingredients starting and ending with dry ingredients until you get a cake batter like consistency. (You will be adding the dry ingredients in 3 batches and wet in 2 batches).
Then divide the batter evenly between two 8 inch cake tins or three 6 inch cake pans and bake in a preheated oven of 180°C for 30 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Allow it to cool in the pan for 5 mins and then invert on a wire rack to cool completely.
Step 2 - Sugar Syrup
Add 2 tbsp of hot water to 2 tbsp of icing sugar. Mix until the sugar dissolve, allow the mixture to cool down and then you can use it on top of your cake.
Step 3 - Chocolate Truffle
Start by chopping your chocolates as small as you can. Transfer it to a heat proof bowl along with the cream.
Heat a saucepan with water until the water starts simmering. Place the bowl on top of it and stirring continuously combine the two until the chocolate is melted and combined with the cream.
Take it off the flame. Cover with a cling wrap and let it chill for 30 mins
Please Note: If you want to prepare the chocolate truffles to decorate the cake like I have done, then at this stage using a tsp as a measurement scoop out 5 to.6 portions of ganache and place it on a parchment paper and allow it to chill while we work on the remaining components.
Whip the remaining ganache to lighten it for few seconds taking care not to over-whip at this stage or else the cream will split and your ganache will be grainy. Whip for 10 seconds. Stop. Scrape the bowl and whip again for 10 seconds. That's it.
Step 4 - Assemble the Cake
Once the cake is baked and cooled down, trim off the top caramalized part of the cake.
Soak your cake with the prepared sugar syrup using pastry brush. Add 1/3 frosting in the centre and spread it across.
Soak the second layer of the cake and place it upside down on top of the frosting. Add 1/3 of the frosting and smooth on top of the cake.
With whatever frosting is left out, crumb coat and also do a final coating on the cake. Chill the cake for 2 hours or overnight.
Step 5 - Chocolate Glaze
Start by chopping the chocolate as small as you can. Pour in hot (not boiling) cream on top of the chocolate. Let it stand for a minute and then add butter and stir everything until the chocolate is all melted and combined with the cream.
Pass it through a sieve to remove air bubbles if any.
Pour it on top of the chilled cream so as to cover the cake entirely from the top as well as on the sides.
Decorate as you like.
Dutch Truffle Cake Decoration
I gave the scooped out ganache from step 3 a ball shape and then dunked them into cocoa powder to make truffles and used it as part of my decorations.
Also used whipped chocolate ganache that we made in step 3 to make some piping design on the top. Then added some edible gold leaf, chocolate curls and the chocolate truffles.Let it chill for 30 mins and then slice and enjoy.
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Notes
Dutch Truffle Cake is known for its rich flavour. So only use couverture or good quality chocolate to make this cake. I am using 70% and 50% Dark Chocolate by Lindt. Have tried this cake with Whittakers and it tastes good too. However if you are not a fan of dark chocolate you can either use less percentage than this or use milk chocolate. But I recommend you to use real chocolate for better flavour.
As a general rule of thumb, not only for this recipe but for any cake recipe that you are trying, always start with preparing the cake pan and pre-heating the oven.
The base of this eggless chocolate cake recipe is from out Hot Milk Chocolate Cake, so the milk, butter and chocolate mixture needs to be hot while combining with the dry ingredients to make the chocolate cake batter.
Always chop your chocolates as fine as you can, so that it melts and combines with the cream easily.
Do not over-whip the ganache or else it will turn grainy and lumpy.
The key to perfectly whipped ganache is the timing. First do not chill for long. 20 to 30 mins is the sweet spot and the second is whipping it for 10 seconds at a time and not more.
It is crucial to chill the cake well so that when you pour the eggless chocolate glaze it sets immediately. This is important since we are making the chocolate glaze without gelatin, agar agar or any setting agent so the temperature is what makes it set.
You need to work quickly while pouring the glaze and also move your hands from centre to the rim of the cake in a circular motion so that you are forcing the glaze to move in all directions.
Whatever glaze is collected in the baking tray can be stored and re-used for next project.
If you are a homebaker and would like to learn how to price this dutch truffle cake? Then do consider checking this post on Cake Pricing Guide.