This Walnut Chocolate Cake is here to celebrate National Chocolate Cake Day. Filled with a Walnut Fudge, covered in a Condensed Milk Chocolate Frosting, topped with a luscious ganache drip. This cake is rich, sweet, and impossible to resist.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword cake, chocolate, walnut
Prep Time 2 hourshours
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Servings 10people
Calories 480kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
1 1/2cupsall-purpose flour183 grams, 5.4 oz
1/3cupunsweetened cocoa powder39 grams, 1.38 oz
1 1/2tspbaking powder
1tspbaking soda
3/4tspfine sea salt
1/2cupunsalted butter room temperature113 grams, 4 oz
1cupssugar200 grams, 7 oz
2eggs
2tspvanilla extract
2/3cupmilk157 ml
2/3cuphot brewed coffee read notes*157 ml
Walnut Fudge Filling
1-14oz396 grams can of Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
2/3cupground walnuts
1tablespoonunsalted butter
Condensed Milk Chocolate Frosting
2/3cupchopped dark chocolate113 grams, 4 oz
2cupsunsalted butter453 grams, 16 oz
2tablespoonscocoa powder
1-14oz396 grams can of Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
Ganache Drip
2/3cupchopped chocolate113 grams, 4 oz
1/3cupheavy cream78 ml
Instructions
Chocolate Cake
This recipe makes for 4-6” round cakes, or 2-8” round cakes.
Pre-heat oven to 350Fº.
Butter 4-6″ cake pans and place a parchment paper circle in the bottom of pans. Butter parchment. You can also use spray oil instead. Set aside.
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder, if using it instead of the coffee. Set aside.
Cream the butter at medium-high speed for 1 minute.
Add sugar slowly, cream for another 2 minutes.
Add eggs to the mixture, one at a time, scraping the bowl in between and making sure the first egg is incorporated before adding the second one.
Add vanilla extract and mix.
Slowly add milk, mix to combine.
Pour dry ingredients over wet mixture.
Fold with a spatula slowly, until ingredients are just combined.
If you see big clumps of cocoa powder, you can use the whisk to try to gently smooth the batter out.
Once batter is incorporated, pour hot coffee in the bowl. Whisk until combined.
Pour batter evenly onto baking pans.
Bake in pre-heated oven for 15-20 min. After the 12 minute mark, keep checking regularly, because you don’t want to burn your cakes or over bake them. Remove them from the oven once a toothpick comes our clean once inserted in the cake.
Once you remove it from the oven, wait 10 minutes, flip cakes onto a cookie cooling rack and let cakes cool.
Once cool, wrap each layer individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use. I like to leave my layers in the fridge for quite a bit so they can firm up and make it easier to assemble and decorate the cake. Specially an oil based cake such as this one, which is a super moist and fluffy cake.
Walnut Fudge Filling
Place the condensed milk, ground walnuts, and butter in a small saucepan.
Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring non stop. Once it gets to a boil, lower heat to medium-low.
Don’t take your eyes off the fudge, and don’t stop stirring.
Cook mixture for about 10 minutes, until it’s thick and you can see the bottom of the pan.
Remove the fudge to a small bowl. Let it cool completely.
Don’t place it in the fridge, or it won’t be easy to spread it on the cake. The fudge can stay on the counter, at room temperature for up to 1 day.
Condensed Milk Chocolate Frosting
Start by melting the chocolate in a microwave bowl, at 20 second increments, stirring in between until all chocolate has melted. Set it aside to cool to room temperature.
Next, make sure the butter is at the appropriate consistency, which should be at room temperature. The butter should have a nice shape, not be too soft, but not cold either. It’s ideal if the butter is from 68 to 72ºF.
Cream the butter with an electric mixer, at medium-high speed, for 5 minutes.
Turn the mixer off, sift the cocoa powder on top of the butter, add condensed milk in. Cream with the mixer on medium speed for 1 minute until combined.
Add melted, cooled, room temperature chocolate to the bowl.
Cream until incorporated and smooth. Make sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
Ganache Drip
Chop the chocolate finely and place it in a bowl. You can also use chocolate chips instead.
Heat the heavy cream until it almost comes to a boil.
Take it off the heat. Pour it over the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for 1 minute.
Use a whisk to gently mix the heavy cream and chocolate until all the chocolate melts, and the mixture is smooth without any chocolate lumps.
If you still see chocolate lumps in, place the bowl in the microwave for a few seconds.
Don’t mix the ganache too much, because if you add too much air to it, it will have air bubbles when you pour it over the cake.
Let the ganache cool down to room temperature. You are looking for the perfect dripping consistency, not too cooled down, but not warm either. You can test this by pouring one drop on the side of a bowl and watching how the drop falls. If it takes forever to roll down the side of the bowl, then your ganache might be too hard. In this case, place it in the microwave for JUST a few seconds, and stir. Test again. Repeat until the drop of ganache is slowly but effortlessly dripping a few inches down and stopping.
To assemble the cake
Place one cake layer on top of a cake plate.
Put some frosting in a piping bag, snip the end with scissors.
Pipe a ring of frosting around the edges of the cake layer.
Fill the middle of the cake with about 1/3 cup of the Walnut Fudge filling. Spread it nicely to the edges using an offset spatula, or the back of a spoon.
Place another cake layer on top. Repeat this until you get to the final cake layer.
Frost the cake with a thin layer of the Condensed Milk Chocolate Frosting.
Place the cake in the fridge for 30 minutes. This is called crumb coating, and it’s a process that helps seal the crumbs of the cake in so they don’t show in the final frosting layer.
Remove the cake of the fridge and then frost it with a thick layer of frosting. Place it in the fridge for about 1 hour. You want the cake to be cold before pouring the ganache on the cake.
Place the ganache in a piping bag and snip a small tip at the end with scissors.
Pour the ganache around the edges of the top of the cake, letting it drip nicely down the sides. Then pipe some ganache on top of the cake. Use a spatula to spread it and smooth it out. Place the cake back in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, or until the ganache firms up.
Pipe some frosting on top, and decorate with walnuts, if you wish to do so. I also sprinkled some ground walnuts on top.
Storage
The cake will store nicely in the fridge for up to 5 days, if covered in an air tight container so it doesn’t dry out. But I assure it won’t last that long.
Notes
*Always feel free to substitute the hot coffee for hot water. You could also add 1 teaspoon of espresso powder to the dry ingredients if that’s the case, or simply go without and use just the hot water. I have made this cake many times without coffee, using water instead, and it turned out fine. The coffee is simply used to enhance the chocolate flavor and richness, but not completely mandatory.