I definitely should be asleep, but a friend asked for the cake recipe, so I was translating and typing it up anyway, and apparently some folks on tumblr have also been curious, so here - my cake recipe.

I feel like it should come with a few disclaimers. The first is that it’s quite a lengthy process - with me, it takes almost all day even with this frosting, which is absolutely the simplest one I do. Part of it is because I always forget to get the butter out in advance, but also a lot of the recipe is genuinely just waiting between the steps.

The second is that my family is ridiculously easy to please, and I imagine not everyone will like this cake as much. Proceed at your own risk.

Also, I added perhaps excessive commentary in some places - sorry if it’s obvious stuff, it’s mostly things like “I wish someone told me that when I was first starting baking/making this specific recipe”.

Part 1: The Sponge Cake

This proportion is for a small cake - the baking form I use for it is just 15 cm in diameter; scale accordingly if you want a bigger one):

Ingredients:

70 g butter at room temperature

2 eggs

100g sugar

50 g dark chocolate (I use 70%)

70 g flour + unsweetened cocoa (a little cocoa, like, around 5 g maybe?)

a pinch of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder.

Preparation:

Melt the chocolate. (Using a microwave or a heated bath is probably best, but I only have one bowl suitable for either, and at that point there is butter in it. I found that heating it in a small saucer on low heat works almost as well)

Whip up the butter with 2/3 of the sugar until it’s light and fluffy

Add the melted chocolate

Separate egg yolks and whites.

Let the whites cool in the fridge, whip the yolks one by one into the butter.

Mix together flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder. Add it into the batter (preferably sifting it, preferably in small batches - at this point the dough becomes quite thick), mix well.

(This is probably when you want to start preheating the oven if you haven’t done that already)

Whip up the whites on low speed (with clean mixer/whisk!), add the sugar, then whip up at higher speed until the whites form stiff peaks.

Add the whites into the batter (kind of fold it in with a spatula or such - circular movements will break up the fluffy structure of the whites more).

Cover the bottom of the baking form with a little butter. I just get a slice and spread it around with my fingers, like a savage. You can melt it and use a brush.

Pour in the batter and bake at 180 C for about 30 mins (YMMV - depends on the oven, so as usual, just stick something into the middle of the cake to make sure it comes off dry)

Voila! You have the sponge cake. Fair warning, it’s pretty crumbly - I like it, but I know not everyone does. I think it feels like it melts in your mouth though! And it will stop falling apart after the cake is assembled.

Part 2: Soaking the sponge cake

I’m not sure what to call it in English - a lot of online recipes omit this step, and I can’t be bothered to look further, but I think it’s always Good to soak the sponge cake in syrupy alcohol for Extra soft and Extra moist.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons of water

3 tablespoons of sugar

~3 tablespoons of strong alcohol (we use cognac, I know some people use rum)

Preparation:

Dissolve the sugar in the water and let it come to a boil. Let it cool, then add the alcohol

After the sponge cake had cooled, cut it up into the layers and pour some of this liquid onto each layer. Don’t be stingy with it.

Let it sit for at least another hour or so.

Part 3: Frosting

I admit, from this point on I just kind of… eyeball a lot of stuff. Precise stuff is out, art is in

Ingredients:

180 g of butter (room temperature again)

~100 g of sweetened condensed milk (might heavily depend on the kind of milk - different brands will have greatly varying sweetness levels)

Unsweetened cocoa powder (you can skip that for plain white frosting. I like all things chocolate though)

Preparation:

Whip up the butter until fluffy and light.

Add sweetened condensed milk little by little and keep tasting it until you think it’s sweet enough. (You can probably add a little more at this point - the bitterness of cocoa will cancel out some of it. Or you can add the cocoa first and then figure out the sweetness levels properly)

Add cocoa bit by bit until it’s chocolatey enough

That’s it, that’s the frosting.

Part 4: Ganache

The most capricious part, in my opinion. I’ve made this or similar cakes with two types of ganaches, so I’ll include both - with time I’ll probably try to find some common ground I like, but for now all I have is these two options.

Ganache 1

This is what I made this time. I find it a bit less finicky (though I’ve had it refuse to solidify on one memorable occasion), but it’s also pretty sweet and in my opinion lends itself better to more sour cakes (like the birthday Pile Cake which is very sour cream-based).

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons of cocoa 3 tablespoons of sugar

5+ tablespoons of cream (very, very dependent on the fat percentage. You can theoretically use ~4 spoons of milk, but I think cream is better and it thickens up quicker that way. I believe I used around 6 tablespoons of 20% cream. When in doubt, add less and then pour in some more if it’s too thick)

An unspecified amount of butter (anything from a small slice to like 100 g will work. More butter - heavier, shinier ganache. I added only a little this time because the frosting is already pretty heavy)

Preparation:

Mix the cocoa, the sugar and the cream, put them on low heat and stir until well mixed (don’t let it boil).

Take it off the heat, add the butter and mix everything together.

Let it cool a bit until appropriately thick - then you can pour it on top of the cake.

If you manage to get the timing right, it should pour but also be thick enough to stick to the sides of the cake if you want to do that.

Ganache 2

This is what I made for this cake all the previous times. It’s a bit bitter - not as much fun on its own, but I think it works really well with a sweet cake like this. I originally adapted it from my eclairs recipe.

Ingredients:

50 g chocolate (I use 70%, different chocolate will probably work differently)

~1 tablespoon of sugar

~90 ml heavy cream (again, the higher the fat percentage on the cream - the more of it you’ll need. This is an approximation for 33% cream)

A few slices of butter. Again, mostly for the shinies.

Preparation:

Melt the chocolate and the sugar in the cream on low heat until the mixture is uniform (there is a specific moment where it gets Shiny, that’s what you’re looking for).

Take off the heat, mix in the butter and let it cool until it thickens. I find that it’s usually pretty slow to do that, and finding the right time can be tricky

That’s… it, I think. Sorry for the wall of text, oof.