Cranberry Chocolate Cake

To celebrate TripleQ's birthday, I made this 6" (almost) molten chocolate cake. I was hoping to take this opportunity to clear up our dark chocolate inventory(~1 lb). And I did. In fact, there was barely any chocolate left to make enough ganache to cover the cake. If you're health-conscious, WALK AWAY. The cake itself is packed with 2 sticks of butter, 1 cup of sugar and 3/4 lb of chocolate. It is truly "death by chocolate" (one good way to die for btw).

The recipe is loosely based on Chef Michael Smith's brownie recipe. There happened to be a jar of dried cranberries in the pantry so I used cranberries instead of walnuts (called in the original recipe).

Servings: one 6" cake + two ramekins


Note: for this recipe, you'll need to bake the cake & let it sit (at least to room temperature) before applying the jam glaze & ganache glaze. You'll have plenty of time to make other components while the cake is baked in the oven or cooling down on the rack. To make this post easier to follow, the ingredient list & instruction for each component are grouped together.


~ for the cake

INGREDIENTS (Cake)

• Bittersweet dark chocolate, 12 ounces (339g)
• Butter,2 sticks (8 ounces)
• Flour, 1 cup
• Salt, a pinch
• Baking powder, 1 tbsp
• Eggs, 4-5*
• Sugar, 1/2 cup
• Brown sugar (packed), 1/2 cup
• Splash of liqueur** or vanilla extract
• Dried cranberries, 1 cup
• More liqueur** for reconstituting cranberries

NOTE* Depends on the size of eggs & your fridge space
NOTE** I use creme de cassis, Grand Marnier and orange liqueur to achieve the balance I'm after. If you are not a self-proclaimed mixologist like me, you can reconstitute cranberries in orange juice or cranberry juice and add vanilla extract to the cake batter.


PROCESS (Cake)

• Melt butter and chocolate over a double boiler
• In a small sauce pan, pour in generous amount of liqueur. Heat over stove to burn off as much alcohol as possible.
• Saucepan off the heat. Add cranberries and soak.
• Sieve and mix all dry ingredients
• Pre-heat the oven to 350F Note: this step can occur whenever convenient. My oven takes 5 minutes to pre-heat.
• Use the mixer to beat eggs & sugar. Add chocolate butter mix. Add dry ingredients.
• Drain cranberries. Reserve the liquid. Add cranberries to the batter.
• Butter & lightly flour a 6" spring foam. Pour batter in. Gently tap the mold to remove big air voids.
• Bake @ 350F for 40 minutes or until set.
• Let the cake cool on the rack
• (Optional) Chill in the fridge if you want to make a "proper-looking" cake. See PROCESS (Assembling).

~ for the jam (sealer layer)

INGREDIENTS (Raspberry)

• Raspberry jam (few tbsp)
• Liqueur reserved from reconstituting cranberries

PROCESS (Raspberry)

• Gently heat jam on the stove until the jam melts slightly (it should be runnier than at room temperature)
• Thin the jam with liqueur (reserved from soaking cranberries) until the mixture has the consistency of raw egg white.
• Strain the mixture if your jam contains fruit bits. (Skip this step if you don't mind bumpy surface on your cake)

~ for the ganache glaze

INGREDIENTS (Ganache)
Original recipe is from joyofbaking.com.

• Cream, 1 part
• Chocolate, 1-3 parts
• Butter (about 1 tbsp butter to 1/2 lb chocolate)
• Splash of your choice of liqueur
• Sugar to taste

Note: I'm the type who can snack on 85% chocolate so no more sugar for me. But it's purely personal preference.


PROCESS (Ganache)

Many tutorials available on the internet. The rule of thumb is to melt chocolate in warm cream without scorching the milk or burning the chocolate.

PROCESS. (Assembling)

What I did:

• Trim the top of the cake.
• Brush on a thick layer of raspberry jam glaze to seal crumbs & also act as filling
• Spread ganache on the cake
• Garnish with star-shaped sprinkles (if everything fails, this is the last resort to wow the audience)

What you can do ("the proper-looking cake"):
Assuming the cake has been in the fridge for minimum 2 hours.

• Trim the top of the cake. Slice the cake in half horizontally.
• Brush on a thick layer of raspberry jam glaze all over the cake (top, sides, in between layers) to seal crumbs & also act as filling
• Whip the ganache until it's nice & fluffy
• Spread ganache all over the cake

Note: When the cake is warm, the center is soft & runny. Put the cake in fridge for few hours if you want to slice it in half for the ganache filling. I didn't do so because we like it as molten chocolate cake.