Tuxedo Truffle Cake

Wow, I haven’t posted a recipe since November 2nd?!

Just hand me the Worst Blogger of All Time Award and get over with it. 

Hope you guys haven’t given up on me to try this tuxedo truffle cake though!

I have never tried a store bought one before, in fact, I’ve never even seen this kind of cake in stores/bakeries. The only time I ever heard of this cake was back during my high school senior year. My preggo French 12 teacher and I were talking about cake (she was the first supporter/motivator of new found love for baking) and she mentioned that her favouritest cake in the entire world is the tuxedo cake. She described it as chocolate mousse layered between marbled cake and from there I added the cake onto my “must have or die” list. 

Funny thing is, it took me three years to finally make the cake. I graduated in 2010 and I finally got off my lazy bum to bake at the end of 2012.

I brought the cake to a NYE party because it would be too tempting to have it sit in my fridge, stare at me and whisper “eat meeeee”. 

I think everyone at the party enjoyed the cake (thank goodness)! Even my fellow chocolate connoisseur, N-, gave it a thumbs up of approval! He did suggest, though, that the cake could use more mousse and I totally agree. To be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of my own cake. I expected moist and creamy, but I made a butter cake so the layers were slightly too thick and dense. Next time, I just have to tweak the cake to mousse ratio a little bit and perhaps use a sponge/chiffon instead of a butter cake. Nonetheless, this cake is one of my favourites now! Maybe it has to do with the large amount of chocolate in the recipe 😛

*Note: this recipe yields 4 cake layers that are 1-inch tall and 10-inches tall. The mousse was just enough to build a 3 layer cake.

Tuxedo Truffle Cake

Cake
3 cups Sifted all-purpose flour
1 tbsp Baking powder
1 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp Salt (omitted)
1 cup Unsalted butter (I used salted butter)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups Buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 10″ round pans. 

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream butter at medium speed until softened, 1 to 2 minutes.

4. Gradually add sugar and vanilla, and continue until colour is lightened, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down sides once or twice.

5. Gradually add eggs, beating after each addition until batter is no longer slick, stopping once or twice to scrape down the sides, about 5 minutes.

6. Slowly add the sifted flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk, a little of each at a time, at low speed, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

7. Divide batter into 2/3 and 1/3. Pour 2/3 of batter into the 2 pans evenly.

8. Add the cocoa to the remaining 1/3 batter then drop by the tablespoonfuls onto the yellow batter. Marble with a knife. Bake for approx 20 minutes or until cake is done. Cool fully before assembling.

White and Dark Chocolate Mousse
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate (I swear by Ghirardelli‘s natural dark chocolate chips)
4 oz white chocolate (I used Bakers chocolate)
3 cups whipping/heavy cream

1. In two separate small bowls, place the finely chopped white and the bittersweet chocolate.

2. Bring 3/4 cup cream to a boil then pour half over each of the chocolates to melt them. Stir the hot cream in well to ensure it is free of lumps and chocolate is fully melted. Set aside for 10 minutes until slightly cooled.

3. Whip 2 1/4 cups of the cream until soft peaks form. Divide the whipped cream into two equal portions and fold the chocolate into each. You should now have one bowl of white chocolate mousse and one bowl of dark chocolate mousse. Store in fridge.

Dark Chocolate Ganache
6 oz dark chocolate (again I used Ghirardelli)
3/4 cup whipping/heavy cream

1. Finely chop the dark chocolate and place in a bowl.

2. Bring the cream to a boil (I did this in the microwave) then pour over the chocolate. Stir to incorporate and melt chocolate. Spread over the top of the cake only AFTER it has been refrigerated. 

Assembly

1. Slice each cake in half to get 4 cake layers, you only need 3 so go ahead and eat the 4th layer, it is decadent enough to be eaten without frosting of any kind.

2. Place one layer onto a cake board and spread white chocolate mousse 1 cm away from the edge. The weight of the 2nd and 3rd layer will push down on the cake and squeeze the mousse to the outer edge, don’t worry 🙂

3. Place 2nd layer on top of mousse, spread dark mousse all the way to the edge.

4. Top off cake with final cake layer then transfer to fridge for at least 3omins.

5. Remove cake from fridge, pour ganache on the top. 

Source: Buttercream Barbie