For another easy but gorgeous Christmas dessert take a look at my White Christmas Truffle Cake. I’ll always love a big, beautiful cake when the holidays come around. It’s the perfect time to bring out the best, most luxurious baking we can and to decorate to the gills! There’s not much that can beat a rich, moist chocolate cake and I love to use Christmas as an excuse to indulge my chocolate cravings. I hope you find this cake as delicious and festive as I do!
Why you’ll love it
This chocolate layer cake filled with cranberry and port compote is absolutely irresistible. Rich chocolate cake layers gently wrapped in whipped chocolate ganache, then decorated with sparkling cranberries. It sounds somewhat complex but only on paper or should I say on screen…because in reality it’s astonishingly simple! First let’s start with the chocolate cake itself.
How do I make a moist chocolate cake?
The recipe I use for the majority of my chocolate cake is the one I am sharing today. It’s the simplest of recipes that delivers the best results. What makes this chocolate cake so simple is that it’s all made in one bowl. And what makes it so moist is vegetable oil and whole milk. Simple. Just make sure you follow the recipe, bake it at the recommended temperature and don’t over-bake it. Keeping cake in the oven longer than needed dries it out! It’s important to master a basic chocolate recipe as you can use it in a variety of ways. Remember that a good chocolate cake is simply a blank canvas for so much more. You can change up the fillings and the icing and come up with so many different cakes. Your friends and family will not stop praising you for your creativity!
Easy cake decorating ideas
For those of you who are comfortable with a piping bag, use it to your advantage as it always gives a cake an air of sophistication and professionalism. If you don’t like using a piping bag, there are hundreds of ideas for decoration that will make your cake look gorgeous! Here are a few ideas from my own recipes:
chocolate truffles like I did in my Black and White Cake edible gold leaf in Chocolate Truffle Cakeberries and fruit in Frostbitten Raspberry Cakechocolate figurines in Malted Chocolate Cakeflowers and dried rose petals in Naked Cake herbs in Rose Rhubarb Cakegreenery and sprinkles in White Christmas Truffle Cake
For my Christmas Chocolate Cake I used sugared cranberries to add a festive touch. They are so easy and quick to make and they look gorgeous! You can use leftover sugared cranberries to decorate your festive cocktails or as candy. My kids loved them!
Top tip
A main reason why baking cake sponges fails is because the oven temperature is not what it should be. Ovens are not perfectly accurate, and can in some cases be wildly off with temperature. This does not make for good baking conditions! I always recommend that an oven thermometer is used to make sure that you are baking at the right temperature. Take a look before the cake pans are put in the oven to make sure the temperature is what you expect it to be!
