Chocolate Raspberry Cake

I usually have a theme each week for the recipes I blog, but not this week. I wanted to make a dessert, and there just isn’t one that fits with the Chimichurri Chicken Green Beans Skillet I just made. Chicken, green beans, and chimichurri sauce are delicious, just not for dessert. Not having a theme meant I could choose any dessert I wanted, and I decided on this Chocolate Raspberry Cake recipe. It’s been a while since I’ve made a cake, and I’m thinking summer berries and chocolate sound like a decadent combo.

This Triple Layer Chocolate Raspberry Cake is a SHOWSTOPPER! This recipe features three layers of moist raspberry chocolate cake, raspberry preserves, and rich chocolate frosting. Top with fresh raspberries for an extra lovely presentation.

Recipe Author: Ashley at Baker by Nature
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The Ingredients

Since the cake and frosting are made from scratch, this recipe had quite a few ingredients. I had a few on hand, but I needed to top up the sugars, cocoa powder, and vanilla extract. I also had to buy the raspberries (fresh for garnish and frozen for the cake), raspberry preserves, eggs, dairy products. That put my grocery bill for this recipe at just over $46.

I know, I know, that’s an expensive cake, but I did have leftovers of several of the ingredients I bought: granulated and confectioners’ sugar, milk, cream, butter, eggs, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, and fresh raspberries.

The items I used up entirely were the frozen raspberries (12-ounce bag), sour cream (16-ounce tub), cream cheese (8-ounce block), and raspberry preserves (9.5-ounce jar). And I think I would have used an entire 8-ounce container of the cocoa powder if I didn’t have some on hand already (I had half a container on hand, bought another, and used half of that).

Chocolate Raspberry Cake Ingredients
Cocoa powder, raspberries, eggs, brown sugar, sugar, powdered sugar, flour, seedless raspberry preserves, butter, heavy cream, milk, sour cream, vanilla extract cream cheese, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and vegetable oil

The Process

This recipe broke down into several parts:

  • Making the cakes and frosting (1 hour 3 minutes)
  • Cooling the cakes (40 minutes)
  • Leveling, frosting and assembling the layers (9 minutes)
  • Chilling the assembled cake (30 minutes)
  • Frosting the top and outside of the assembled cake (5 minutes)

My total time was 1 hour 57 minutes, a good bit faster than the 3 hours 16 minutes listed. After I removed them from the pans, I chilled the cakes in my refrigerator for 30 minutes, and that saved me a ton of time. Also, my cake pans are easy release, so I didn’t need to line them with parchment paper.

This recipe wasn’t without some difficulties, though, but they were my fault. My cake pans are 8-inches, and the recipe clearly says to use 9-inch pans. I wrongly assumed I had the correct size, filled them nearly to the top because I had a lot of cake batter, and they overflowed. That created smoke and a lovely burnt smell that lasted for days. Ugh! It also added 20 minutes to the baking time because the cakes were so thick. The smaller pans would have worked better if I hadn’t overfilled them. I found out too late that 3/4 full is the rule of thumb.

Other than that hiccup, things went pretty smoothly. I remembered to drape a tea towel over my stand mixer when I mixed the powdered ingredients, and that cut down on the usual dust. Mixing flour and powdered sugar is so messy if you don’t have a built-in cover!

Tip: Does your cake stand have a cover? Mine doesn’t so I used my largest mixing bowl to cover the cake (6 quarts). It was much neater and more effective than plastic wrap or aluminum foil since it didn’t touch the cake and stick to the frosting 🙂

Packed brown sugar
Packed brown sugar

So how was it?

Clear & Accurate Directions
Accurate Time(s)
Appearance
Taste
Classic chocolate cake is elevated by adding a pop of fruity raspberry flavor using a combination of raspberries and raspberry preserves. Whole raspberries are baked into moist chocolate cake and raspberry preserves (seedless, of course) are added to the chocolate frosting and between the cake layers. The result is the chocolatey goodness you expect with a burst of fruit flavor once in a while. This recipe does require a lot of ingredients, some special equipment, and a few hours of work, but I thought the results were very much worth it. The instructions are clear and easy to follow, even for someone who isn't a particularly gifted baker. The accompanying post also includes a list of tips and tricks that I recommend printing out with the recipe.
Candice
Candicehttps://www.hungrypinner.com
I'm Candice, and I'm The Hungry Pinner. I created this blog to share my love for cooking and my experiences with the MANY recipes I've found on Pinterest over the years. Join me as I blog my way through those recipes to find out if they are worth trying yourself.

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Classic chocolate cake is elevated by adding a pop of fruity raspberry flavor using a combination of raspberries and raspberry preserves. Whole raspberries are baked into moist chocolate cake and raspberry preserves (seedless, of course) are added to the chocolate frosting and between the cake layers. The result is the chocolatey goodness you expect with a burst of fruit flavor once in a while. This recipe does require a lot of ingredients, some special equipment, and a few hours of work, but I thought the results were very much worth it. The instructions are clear and easy to follow, even for someone who isn't a particularly gifted baker. The accompanying post also includes a list of tips and tricks that I recommend printing out with the recipe. Chocolate Raspberry Cake