Try this divine layered Chocolate Cranberry Cake recipe from from master baker, Stella Parks of BraveTart. The rich chocolate layers will wow on your holiday table.
This cake is made easily made gluten-free with Stella's gluten-free flour mix, or your favorite gluten-free blend.
This recipe makes one 8โ three-layer Chocolate Cranberry Cake.
Recipe and article courtesy of Stella Parks, Bravetart. Check out her cookbook: BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts. The recipes in Stella's book aren't gluten-free, but they provide lots of ideas for converting to GF!
Nobody wants an understated chocolate cake.
Well, at least not for an over-the-top occasion like New Yearโs Eve. So if your resolution involves giving up or scaling back on dessert, youโd better stop scrolling now.
Chocolate cakes typically rely on deep, dark ingredients like black coffee, brown sugar, and Bourbon vanilla. Delicious, but not exactly in line with the bubbly spirit of New Yearโs Eve. I wanted a cake that would pair better with champagne than cappuccino, something along the lines of a chocolate covered strawberry (but seasonally appropriate).
Cranberry brings this cake's flavor power.
To make this chocolate cake feel festive and bright, I ditched the usual one-two punch of coffee and vanilla for cranberry juice and rose water. The same way coffee underscores the roasted bitterness of chocolate, cranberry teases out its natural fruit flavor. Even better, it tenderizers in a way that puts buttermilk to shame.
Rose flower water has a bad reputation, often used indiscriminately to overpower delicate flavors like yogurt or goat cheese. But it canโt bully dark chocolate. Against that sort of bitter intensity, its aromatics simply round out the flavor. It adds dimension like vanilla, but in a way that feels airy rather than deep.
This Chocolate Cranberry Cake needs the rose. Promise.
Together the cranberry and rose make a cake that tastes every bit as chocolatey and complex as a traditional recipe, minus that earthy darkness. To play up the cranberry flavor, I paired it with Cranberry Swiss Buttercream and Cranberry Ganache.
Even if you hate rose flower water, I hope youโll trust me on this one. You wonโt taste the rose itself, but without its magic the flavor of the whole cake falls flat. If you havenโt used it before, you can pick a bottle up for about two bucks. Youโll find it in the international aisle of larger grocery chains, in upscale liquor stores, from your local Middle Eastern or Indian market, and online.
Then wow your friends with this delicious Chocolate Cranberry Layer Cake!
Chocolate Cranberry Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 6 ounces dark chocolate preferably one with a fruit-forward flavor; I used Videri 70%
- 6 ounces Dutch process cocoa powder
- 18 ounces 100% pure unsweetened cranberry juice
- 4 ยฝ teaspoons rose water aka: rose flower water
- 12 ounces gluten-free flour blend all purpose flour or Stella's GF blend: 6 ounces buckwheat flour, 3 ounces cornstarch, and 3 ounces white rice flour
- 18 ounces sugar
- 2 ยผ teaspoons baking soda
- ยพ teaspoon baking powder
- ยผ plus โ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt; use half as much if iodized or fine sea salt
- 3 large eggs
- 9 ounces unsalted butter melted
- 9 ounces whole milk
- To finish:
- 1 batch Cranberry Swiss Buttercream
- 8 ounces plain or Cranberry Ganache
To make Cranberry Swiss Buttercream:
- 6 ounces egg whites โ cup; 170g, from 5 to 6 large eggs
- 11 ounces sugar about 1 โ cups; 310g
- ยพ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt use half as much if iodized or fine sea salt; 3g
- ยผ teaspoon cream of tartar
- Scraped seeds from 1 split vanilla bean optional
- 20 ounces unsalted butter 5 sticks; 565g, softened to about 65ยฐF (18ยฐC)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 5ml
- ยผ cup cranberry jam or jellied cranberry sauce
For the Cranberry Ganache:
- 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate about 60-70%, chopped (โ cup; 60g)
- 2 ounces heavy cream (ยผ cup; 60g)
- 2 ounces dried cranberries
Instructions
For the Cranberry Buttercream:
- Fill a wide pot with at least 1 ยฝ inches of water, with a thick ring of crumpled tinfoil placed on the bottom to act as a "booster seat" that will prevent the bowl from touching the bottom of the pot. Place over high heat until steaming-hot, then adjust temperature to maintain a gentle simmer.
- Combine egg whites, sugar, salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla seeds (if using) in the bowl of a stand mixer. Set over steaming water, stirring and scraping constantly with a flexible spatula, until egg whites hold steady at 185ยฐF (85ยฐC). This should take only 10 to 12 minutes, so if mixture seems to be moving slowly, simply turn up the heat. Once ready, transfer to a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and whip at high speed about 10 minutes, until meringue is glossy, stiff, and cool to the touch, around 90ยฐF (32ยฐC).
- With mixer still running, add butter, 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time. Initially, the volume of the meringue will decrease dramatically; it may even seem soupy along the way, but as the cool butter is added, the mixture will begin to thicken and cool. In the end, buttercream should be thick, creamy, and soft but not runny, around 72ยฐF (22ยฐC). Mix in vanilla extract on low speed until well combined. Then mix in the cranberry jam on low speed.
For the Cranberry Ganache:
- Place chocolate in a small, heatproof bowl.
- In a 1-quart stainless steel saucepan heat cream and dried cranberries over medium-low heat to warm for 5 minutes, then increase to medium-high heat until it has reached a simmer and started to bubble hard around the edges. Use a slotted spoon or spider to remove the cranberries from the cream, and immediately pour hot cream over chocolate and let stand 1 minute. Using a spoon, stir until smooth.
For the Cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350ยฐ and line three 8โ by 2โ cake pans with parchment rounds; grease lightly.
- Roughly chop the chocolate and place in a medium bowl; sift the cocoa powder over top. Meanwhile, bring the cranberry juice to a simmer in a 3 quart stainless steel pot. When it begins to bubble, shut off the heat and add the chocolate/cocoa all at once. Whisk to form a smooth paste, then stir in the rose flower water.
- Using the same bowl and sieve from before, sift the flour and set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, combine the sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the eggs and mix for a minute on low speed to moisten. Increase the speed to medium and whip until fluffy and light, about 8 minutes.
- Reduce speed to medium-low and splash in the melted butter a little at a time, then whip in the chocolate-cranberry paste. When well combined, reduce speed to the lowest setting. Add one-third of the flour followed by one-third of the milk, alternating between the two until completely incorporated.
- Stir the batter once or twice with a flexible spatula, then divide between the prepared pans (27 ounces each). Bake until the cakes are puffed and somewhat firm to the touch, though your finger may leave a slight impression; about 40 minutes.
- Let the cakes stand at room temperature for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges with a knife, invert onto a wire rack, and cool until no trace of warmth remains. I like to leave the pans on top; it takes longer to cool this way, but traps steam to retain moisture.
- Level the cakes with a serrated knife. Top each with a heaping cup of freshly whipped Cranberry Buttercream and spread into an even layer.
- Leave the sides exposed for a rustic look, or give the cake a crumb coat and fully frost.
- Finish with a swirl of plain or Cranberry Ganache. The spiraled edges give an illusion of the cake being much taller than three layers.
Notes
Chocolate Torte: for a single layer, divide the entire recipe by three. Serve with Cranberry Ganache and a dollop of whipped cream on the side. Buttercream storage:
Use buttercream right away, or transfer to a large zipper-lock bag, press out the air, and seal. Buttercream can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks and frozen for up to several months. Rewarm to 72ยฐF and re-whip before using. See Stella's step-by-step Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe and tutorial here.
Nutrition
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