"Cake! Chocolate cake. You slithered like a serpent into the school kitchen and ate MY PERSONAL SNACK! Do you deny it?"
"Well, it's hard for me to remember a specific cake."
"This one was mine. And it was the most scrumptious cake in the entire world."
- Miss Trunchbull & Bruce Bogtrotter (Matilda)
(Disclaimer: This really is the MOST SCRUMPTIOUS cake recipe in the entire world - no lie! So be careful who you share the end product with because I can promise you that you're not going to want to give up any!)
So one of the best moments in the entire movie AND book (because they were both equally amazing) is when Miss Trunchbull forces her cake thief, Bruce Bogtrotter, to eat an ENTIRE CHOCOLATE CAKE ........ alone. He finishes it, of course - to tremendous, thunderous applause and cheering from his classmates (especially Matilda) and it marks the beginning of the end for Miss Trunchbull's reign of terror at Crunchem Hall.
As a child, watching this movie, I always wanted to be in that hall, cheering on Brucie, taking down the Trunchbull, and (most importantly) eating that cake! It looked so moist and rich, and with those thick lashings of frosting between each layer, yum, how could it be anything less than the best cake ever?
I've never had any luck finding a recipe that did my dream justice, so I've done some experimenting of my own and, after lots of trial and error, officially created the yummiest chocolate cake ever!
And now you can too!
Strawberry Panna Cotta & Pomegranate Glaze
Makes: 1 Trunchbull sized cake (serves 6-8)
(for a proper, movie sized cake, I'd recommend doubling this recipe)
Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 ¾ cups plain flour
¾ cup dark cocoa powder
3 Tb coffee
1 ½ tsp bicarb soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup melted butter
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup hot water (not quite boiling)
for the frosting
2 cups unsalted butter, softened
2 ½ cups icing sugar, sifted
1 ¼ cups dark cocoa powder, sifted
½ cup sour cream, at room temperature
½ cup hot water
2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch fine sea salt
300g dark chocolate, melted (slightly cooled)
Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and flour two cake tins.
In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, bicarb soda, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
In a separate bowl stir together the milk, vanilla and coffee.
Add this mix, eggs and butter to the flour mixture, then combine for 3 minutes with an electric mixer (or very vigorous hand mixing with a strong fork).
Gently, whilst hand mixing, pour in the water until it reaches a good consistency - thick and creamy (a bit like slightly thick custard). Pour evenly into the two prepared tins.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from tins to cool further - but don't let it get completely cold! You'll want to frost your cake when it's comfortably warm to the touch.
For the frosting, beat butter on medium speed until pale and creamy. Add icing sugar and cocoa powder and mix to combine. Add sour cream, hot water, vanilla and salt and mix gently until the liquid is incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. (It may start to look like it's begun to split or curdle -but that's fine)
Beat until smooth, and add cooled chocolate and mix until smooth and glossy. Make sure you don't make this too soon before your cake cools, because it will begin to set in about half an hour from the time you finished mixing it.
Slice the top layer off of your cakes to make them flat (you can slice them in half to make 4, thin layers if you'd prefer) and spread a nice, thick amount of frosting inbetween layers, before covering the cake. Allow this to set a bit before serving!
Enjoy!
I hope you enjoyed this recipe, and please feel free to let me know if there are any other recipes you want to see and definitely let me know how yours turned out if you try it!
Thanks!