Chocolate Cake with Coffee Ganache Frosting (Eggless)

Update - Dec. 2013: This cake got nominated among Top 10 finalists in Chef Sanjeev Kapoor's #ChristmasFiesta Cake Competition 2013.  Hence, this recipe is blessed by none other than Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor :)

This recipe is a celebration of a few milestones.  Today the blog is celebrating it's 4th birthday and it's 100th post.  It also surpassed 25,000 page views last week, with visitors across 93 countries.  What better week than this, to celebrate and express my heartfelt gratitude to all those who taught, motivated, and inspired me through this journey thus far.  Truly feeling grateful & blessed.  

And what better way to celebrate than with a chocolate cake, with a hint of coffee, and dressed in lots of candies :)  

I did some research and combined a few recipes, and added some ingredients that I like. The cake this time was the best I have baked, ever. This is one of the easiest eggless cake recipes, and so much fun to bake too. Don't be overwhelmed by the description, as it's not as complicated as it looks.  It turned out very soft, fluffy, and yummy. It also fluffed up more than one and half times.  I did not expect the cake to rise that much.

Recipe:

All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cup

Cocoa powder - 1/4 cup

Brewed coffee - 1 cup

Sugar - 1 cup (can use brown sugar)

Baking soda - 1 teaspoon

Oil - 1/4 cup

Salt - 1 pinch

Vanilla Extract - 1 teaspoon

Lemon juice - 1 tablespoon

[Note: In later versions, I tried 2 variations and those worked well:

I added 1/2 cup of sour-cream. It made the cake extra soft and moist.  If you do so, reduce the brewed coffee by 1/2 cup.   For a kids' version, I replaced brewed coffee with water.]

For Ganache Frosting (Frosting is truly optional in this cake, can totally skip it):

Cocoa powder - 2 tablespoons (Can use chocolate instead)

Heavy whipping cream - 1 cup

Instant coffee powder - 1 to 2 teaspoons (per taste)

Cream cheese - 1 Oz

Sugar - 1 1/2 tablespoon (more, if you like it on the sweeter side)

For Decoration:

Kit Kat bars - About 16 small double-bars

M&Ms - 1 cup

• Preheat oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Brew 1 cup coffee.  The coffee needs a special mention here.  I brewed freshly ground, Moksha coffee gifted by my friend.  One of the most divine coffees, I've had.  Needless to say the cake tasted divine as well :) 
• Sift All purpose flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt in a container/
• Mix brewed coffee, oil, sugar in another container till the sugar is dissolved.  
• Combine all the ingredients and whisk together well.  I don't bake much, so I haven't invested in fancy mixers.  But as i was whisking the mixture, out of the blue, I happened to ask my Mom if we had an electric mixer.  We did!!!! Who knew?? God bless my Mom :)  I think using an electric mixer for about 5-7  minutes made all the difference.  This is the best cake I have ever baked thus far.  Came out very fluffy.
• Grease a cake pan with oil.  I wanted the cake to be smaller in diameter, taller in height and my cake pan was much wider.  Hence I used a pyrex glass container.  It worked very well.  Pour the mixed batter in the container and put it inside the pre-heated oven.  
• Some of the recipes I had looked at required about 20 minutes baking.  But mine took almost 45 minutes, and then some.  But keep watching after 15-20 minutes.  Insert a tooth-pick in the middle of the cake, and if it comes clean, that means the cake is done.  
• Once done, take it out of the oven and let it cool.  Once cool, run a knife around the container (or if you are using a cake pan, just open up the side and remove the cake), and gently invert the container in a plate, the cake should come out easily (if you had greased the pan well, and were patient enough to let the cake and container cool :))

Frosting - Cocoa and coffee based Ganache: (You can tell I love coffee!)

Note:  I prepared a light cocoa and coffee based Ganache using cocoa powder.  You can use chocolate instead.  There are multiple ways of making ganache.  This one was nice and soft.  If using chocolate, it would be bit stiffer. Also the quantity of the chocolate/cocoa can vary based on your taste.  If using chocolate, it will need to be melted over a double boiler first.

• Keep the container you are going to prepare the frosting in, in freezer for about 15 minutes.  Make sure all the other ingredients are cold as well.
• Whip all the ingredients well, until it stiffens up a bit.  You will see peaks of the frosting when you try to lift it with a whisk/spoon.  That is when you know it's done.  I used the electric mixer again, for whipping. It took about 5-7 minutes until done.  Refrigerate the frosting if you are not planning on using it immediately.
• Apply a layer frosting all around the cake and on top of it.  This will also help hold the kit kat bars in place, which is the next step.
• Place kit kat bars vertically around the cake, and top it with M&Ms.  This step was my favorite one :)
• Tie a ribbon around the cake.  Voila!!! All done!!

Enjoy!!   Refrigerate the leftovers, if any.

Update: 25th Dec. 2014:  And there were 4 cakes!

Within a week of baking this cake, I had to bake a cake for my niece's school Christmas party. So I started baking one more cake, and my nephew wanted one so I doubled the batch, and in the meantime, I found out my friend was coming over, and also had to bake one more for the house - so started off baking 1 cake but ended with 4 cakes. I actually used batter of 2 cakes to create 1 regular, 2 mini and 1 medium cake.  This time, i tried to make the remaining ones unique and so eventhough the cake and the frosting is the same, I used strawberry topping for one and oranges for another. This turned out to be welcome variations.  Took these pictures last year, but posting it today :)