Chocolate Blackout Wedding Cake with Coconut Buttercream

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Omitted the chill powder and didn't use this filling or buttercream recipe. I just used a traditional swiss meringue buttercream. Fantastic cake! I made this for my daughter's birthday party and wanted a larger cake, so I used the entire recipe for one-12" round pan. Baked for the 30 minutes...I was worried but the cake tester came out clean and I took my chances. I ended up doing 3 recipes, ending with 3 nice 1 3/4" layers in the cake. I filled it with a cream cheese truffle filling and I had comments galore on how amazing it was from all of the guests.

The texture was dense, which is my kind of cake and it was rich and incredibly moist. Made ahead a day it was still fantastic. Kept really well. I froze the leftovers which, weeks later were nearly as yummy as day one!

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I loved this! I left out the chili powder, but otherwise followed the cake recipe. The cake was dry, and I wonder if it was just over-done? After 30 minutes in the oven, it wasn’t done. I left it in for 5 more minutes. Other than baking it for less time, is there a way to make the cake moister?

The ganache was wonderful - I made a batch and a half, since the recipe called for "a thin layer" and I wanted something more decadent. Rather than whisking by hand, I put it in my stand mixer with the wire whisk. I beat it for about 4 minutes, but wonder if I should have gone longer? It seemed too loose, so I put it in the fridge for about an hour. Then it was too thick to spread. However, I "chunked" pieces of it onto the cake layers, and ended up with a half-inch of ganache between each layer of cake - this was awesome!

Finally, after all of the icing reviews, I made the buttercream recipe on the Giardelli cocoa package, and it was fabulous!

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This recipe can be found in Margaret Braun's "Cake Walk" book and it is a wonderful recipe. In her recipe, she calls fo all purpose flour which is not a good choice and I am happy to see that Flay's assistants tweeked it to cake flour. In Braun's recipe she has the butter melted which gives a completely different fudgy texture when you do this with cake flour.

I use very good and very dark cocoa as well and that is the key to this cake.

I will blend the coffee and the buttermilk together and use that as the liquid.

If you want to increase the amount of batter, use the Braun formula if you can get your hands on it and tweek it to what Flay's assistants have done with this recipe..it is great to blend the sugar with the softened butter rather than the melted butter in Braun's recipe.

Both recipes are excellent and will give you different results.

The chili powder is probably not necessary and in fact, may punish an otherwise fabulous cake.

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I have mixed feelings about this recipe: like another reviewer, I was very glad I only used 1 Tbl. of ancho chili powder (it gave it a kick, but did not take over the flavor. The cake itself was extremely soft & crumbly & fell apart as we cut it & frosted it, even after chilling. I agree that baking an extra layer & NOT cutting them in half might work better. I'm thinking of using a mix & adding the chilii powder another time! The buttercream frosting was extremely difficult - timing is everything - the 1st time I let the sugar mixture cool too long in between additions to the egg mixture & it crystallized. We tried to reheat the bowl in hot water & in the oven but finally gave up & started over. What a waste of time & ingredients! But the 2nd time yielded a frosting to die for - I'm just not sure I want to work that hard for it another time! The ganache, however, was excellent, altho adding a bit more cream made it more spreadable. Bobby Flay's recipe is wonderful in a perfect world - but he has 'people' to help him & I don't!!!!!!

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Has anyone tried scaling up this recipe to make a large wedding cake? I want to make a 3-tier cake with 12 inch, 9 inch, and 6 inch pans. On the show they make a huge 4-tier cake so I assume it can scale up but I'm not sure if I can simply double the cake, ganache, and frosting recipes or if I should make two batches of each? Any thoughts?

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I am not a novice baker and things were going swimmingly well until the buttercream. I will NEVER attempt a frosting with a "candy" base again. I tried 3 times to get this frosting to come out right. 1 1/2 dozen eggs later, I ended up pulling the giant candy ball out of the bottom of the bowl and discarding it. I replaced the candy base with powdered sugar and was able to salvage the box of butter.

Of course by the time the frosting was done, the ganache was hard as a rock. I'm sure that I've ruined it by heating it in the microwave to get it spreadable, but that is yet to be determined.

My recommendation, use the cake recipe, use the ganache recipe, but find another buttercream recipe. Unless you've got a chicken coop in your backyard for all the eggs you'll waste trying to get it right. :

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I love this so much that I made it for my sister's wedding she dioesn't like coconut so I didn't cover it in coconut but made the receipe exactuly as is except for the coconut. I will never make a traditional buttercream again.

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The cake part of this recipe would have tasted better if I hadn't added the chili powder. The recipe asked for 3 tablespoons and I put 1 tablespoon in and it was much too strong. The cake was moist but would fall apart easily when cutting into layers. The ganache was good but I would use less bittersweet chocolate next time. The icing was a different texture than my family is use to, and thought with the coconut milk it tasted like cough syrup. The icing sounded so good with the eggs and butter and when the icing hardened it was like a candy, and very easy to spread after doing the crumb coating. It looked beautiful and for all the work this beautiful cake ended up in the trash.

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I made this cake for Mother's day and everyone was moaning with pleasure. The cake was simply magnificant. I did replace the optional ingredient with cinnamin and used a chocolate icing with some of the gananche. Additional i made four cake pans and made about 7 layers. Family and friends are still raving about it.

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This was all very easy and very delicious to eat. I must admit, I tweaked things here and there. I made the ganache as instructed, and the buttercream was made into an espresso flavor instead, and I used yellow cake instead of chocolate. If you follow the steps and basic format of this recipe, you will not be disappointed. The best buttercream I have ever tasted(if it isn't setting up for you, just pop it in the fridge for a while till it chills, and then whip it again, and the toffee bits in the ganache REALLY steps it up a notch. Utter perfection.