Chocolate cake is a cake flavored with melted chocolate, cocoa powder, or both.
From it’s delicious taste, to its rich texture, the chocolate cake is considered to be one of the best desserts of all time.
Chocolate cake is made with chocolate. It can also include other ingredients such as fudge, vanilla creme, and other sweeteners.
The history of chocolate cake goes back to 1764, when Dr. James Baker discovered how to make chocolate by grinding cocoa beans between two massive circular millstones.
A popular Philadelphia cookbook author, Eliza Leslie, published the earliest chocolate cake recipe in 1847 in The Lady’s Receipt Book. Unlike chocolate cakes we know today, this recipe used chopped chocolate.
During the 19th century, pastry chefs, notably in France and Austria, concocted sophisticated chocolate desserts to be enjoyed by the privileged elites.
For everyone else, chocolate in all its forms remained a rare treat, reserved for special occasions.
It was not until the 20th century, as cacao prices became more affordable, that chocolate cake reached the masses.
Today, there are many different types of chocolate cake, depending on the recipe and different types of chocolate used.
Different countries have different recipes for chocolate cakes.
Sachertorte is a famous Viennese cake. It is the most famous chocolate cake in the world. Sachertorte was invented by Austrian Franz Sacher in 1832 for Prince Wenzel von Metternich in Vienna, Austria. The sweet masterpiece consists of 3 layers of chocolate sponge cake with thickly spread apricot jam in between and on the top. The whole cake is covered in dark chocolate icing. It is traditionally served with unsweetened whipped cream on the side.
German chocolate cake isn’t German. It owes its name to an English-American chocolate maker named Samuel German, who developed a formulation of dark baking chocolate that came to be used in the cake recipe. German chocolate cake is a layered chocolate cake filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting.
A Joffre cake is a chocolate buttermilk layer cake filled with chocolate ganache and frosted with chocolate buttercream originally created at Bucharest‘s Casa Capșa restaurant, in honor of a visit by French Marshal Joseph Joffre, shortly after World War I.
Black Forest gâteau or Black Forest cake is a chocolate sponge cake with a rich cherry filling based on the German dessert Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, literally “Black Forest Cherry-torte”. Typically, Black Forest gateau consists of several layers of chocolate sponge cake sandwiched with whipped cream and cherries.
Molten chocolate cake is a popular dessert that combines the elements of a flourless chocolate cake and a soufflé. Its name derives from the dessert’s liquid chocolate center, and it is also known as chocolate moelleux (from French for “soft”), chocolate lava cake, or simply lava cake.
A Ding Dong is a chocolate cake produced and distributed in the United States by Hostess Brands and in Canada from Vachon Inc. under the name King Dons. The Ding Dong has been produced since 1967. It is round with a flat top and bottom, close to three inches in diameter and slightly taller than an inch, similar in shape and size to a hockey puck. A white creamy filling is injected into the center and a thin coating of chocolate glaze covers the cake.
Probably the most expensive chocolate cake in the world, this 36-centimeter (14-inch) tall cake was displayed in a department store in Osaka, decorated with 50 carat diamonds. It cost one billion
yen (about US$9,500,000).
Chocolate Cake Day in the United States is on January 27.