Need to make a cake incorporating 3 lbs of chocolate
In a moment of ridiculousness I promised my fella a birthday cake that involves 3 lbs of chocolate. Obviously decoration takes care of some of it- I'm thinking of rings of truffles on top, or hershey's kisses if I'm running short on time. And ganache is a no-brainer. But I'm having trouble figuring out how to incorporate a significant amount of chocolate into the cake itself, since most recipes use a fairly small amount. Suggestions?
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10 Comments:
if you make a flourless chocolate cake, you can use at least a pound of chocolate. if you google, you can find lots of recipes that call for not much more than a ton of chocolate, eggs, butter and sugar.
cybercita at 11:47PM on 07/31/09
what about this one? I think it has at about 3 lbs chocolate if not more if including the topping.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Triple-Chocolate-Celebration-Cake-105184
bigfatmouth at 11:51PM on 07/31/09
Depending on the cake, you can just throw chocolate chips into the batter.
dbcurrie at 11:57PM on 07/31/09
Why not make chocolate sculptures as decoration around or on the cake, with the molds they make for chocolate lollipops? Or make chocolate lollipops, stuck in gumdrops or another type of candy as a 'base' to go 'round the cake?
HeartofGlass at 5:23AM on 08/01/09
Couldn't you just make a ginormous cake?
sorahatch at 7:13PM on 08/01/09
I think I have a plan. I suspect that any of the traditional flourless chocolate cakes will be so rich that the additions of ganaches and frostings and such will render the cake too rich to eat more than two bites of, and I don't have ginormous pans. But I found a recipe for "Lighter than Air chocolate cake" on Smitten Kitchen, which has 12 oz chocolate in it but no butter. I'll cover each layer with white chocolate ganache (6 oz), then a dark chocolate ganache (another 6 oz) then cram as much chocolate into a swiss meringue buttercream as I can (maybe 10-12 oz) and decorate the outside with 12 oz worth of things. i think the ganache and frosting layers will look cool when it's sliced, and I may toss some cherries in there someplace too.
http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/03/the-best-chocolate-cake-expletive-free/
thatgrrl at 12:06PM on 08/02/09
Looking at the SK recipe. I'd be afraid that all the toppings would crush the cake - it's melt-in-your-mouth insubstantial, she explains, and without a flour structure, I would be afraid it couldn't up to two ganache toppings and the heavy buttercream and would crumble under them.
producestories at 3:43PM on 08/02/09
Another (very labor-intensive) option is the chocolate and salted caramel layer cake in Baked: New Frontiers in Baking.
http://www.amazon.com/Baked-Frontiers-Baking-Matt-Lewis/dp/1584797215/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249248798&sr=8-1
The frosting alone uses a significant quantity of chocolate... along with 4 sticks of butter.
I never said it was healthy.
GirlFromJetCity at 5:34PM on 08/02/09
producestories: Thought about that. But having baked the layers, I think they'll hold up if I let each layer of goo thoroughly chill before proceeding. The cake isn't quite as fluffly/fragile as I thought it would be from her description, but it is lighter than other flourless chocolate cakes I've made.
I'm also making layers with a relatively small area- loaf-pan sized, since that's what I had to bake in- which should help maintain structural integrity better than larger layers.
thatgrrl at 1:39AM on 08/03/09
Success! I only got about 2.5 lbs of chocolate in it, but oh golly gee is this ever a tasty cake!
thatgrrl at 2:28AM on 08/05/09