A super simple and really delicious chocolate layer cake: a good truffle chocolate flavor and a soft and intense texture. Molly cake recipe by Cyril Lignac.
A few days ago, I was invited to a housewarming party for a former colleague. Since I've been self-employed, I haven't had the opportunity to discuss life's issues over coffee anymore, so it was really nice to see my old crowd again. Apparently they miss me, but I suspect it's more due to the lack of cakes I used to bring every week rather than my sparkling personality! In any case, I wanted to bring them a good seasonal cake and so I opted for a chocolate pumpkin layer cake.
I stumbled upon the recipe from the Chapeau Melon blog while searching for inspiration. I'm increasingly trying to stick to seasonal ingredients and so this recipe was perfect. I had been able to see this cake in person since Soraya had prepared this recipe for the Telethon where I was also invited last year. It had already caught my eye back then, which is why I jumped at the opportunity to test this recipe.
I make relatively few layer cakes, it's not a type of cake that's very popular in my family where we prefer traditional cakes. But with about twenty guests at this housewarming, I needed something like that to feed all my sweet tooths. Before it wasn't really my thing (especially in terms of assembly, it never turned out very straight like was the case with my lemon meringue layer cake) but I'm starting to get the hang of it.
Several specialists recommended the molly cake to me for making layer cakes and it's true that this recipe is pretty good. The pumpkin version was great and the contrast with the chocolate was nice both visually and taste-wise. Maybe next time I'll soak the cakes in syrup to make them a bit softer when tasting. Apart from that it was perfect. I adjusted the mascarpone frosting a bit which I didn't find sweet enough and in the end the tangy taste of the cheese goes well with the sweet side of the cake.
I'm a bit less happy with my chocolate frosting on top which I find too thick, that's a point to review for next time. I'll correct the recipe for you with a tried and tested method (I personally wanted to mix two recipes and add a little gelatin to my ganache but that wasn't a great idea).
For the assembly, nothing but the very classic approach. We bake the cakes separately, slice them into regular layers and reconstruct the cake by incorporating the ganache between each layer. Here it's planned to put ganache in the center of the ganache and vanilla frosting around the edge. This prevents the chocolate ganache from staining the overall frosting of the cake.
Once all the tiers are assembled, we then cover it with frosting to finish it all off. We start by making a very thin first layer of frosting to catch the crumbs. We put it in the fridge for at least 10 minutes to set it and then we frost it completely this time.
Use a 20 cm diameter mold, with mine which is 15 cm, I was able to make another mini cake on the side (if you have a 15 cm mold, I recommend reducing the quantities by a third).
Don't forget to incorporate the crushed hazelnuts between each layer, they add a nice crunchy side! Don't hesitate to test this chocolate pumpkin layer cake at the next opportunity, it was a real treat!
