New Orleans Double-chocolate Praline-fudge Cake

Dreamgoddess's Note:

This recipe makes an elegant cake that is beautiful garnished with fresh fruit such as strawberries. Despite the lengthy instructions and long list of ingredients, the cake is very easy to prepare and assemble.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 45 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 8

Cake

• 1 cup butter
• ¼ cup cocoa
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon salt

Chocolate Ganache

• 2 cups semisweet chocolate morsels
• 1⁄3; cup whipping cream
• ¼ cup butter , cut into pieces

Praline Frosting

• ¼ cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar , firmly packed
• 1⁄3; cup whipping cream
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped pecans , toasted

Directions:

1. Cake:
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Combine butter, cocoa and water in a saucepan.
4. Cook, stirring constantly, over low heat until the mixture is smooth and butter has melted; remove from heat and cool.
5. Combine the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda and vanilla; beat on medium speed with a mixer until smooth.
6. Combine the butter mixture and buttermilk mixture; beat until well blended.
7. Combine the sugar, flour and salt in a bowl; mix well.
8. Gradually add the flour mixture to the buttermilk mixture; beat until blended.
9. The batter should be thin.
10. Spray three 8" round cake pans with cooking spray and line them with wax paper.
11. Pour the batter evenly into the pans and bake at 350 degrees for 22-24 minutes or until cake tests for doneness.
12. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes; remove from pans and cool completely.
13. To assemble the cake:.
14. Spread 1/2 c ganache between the cake layers; spread the remainder on the sides of the cake and chill for 30 minutes.
15. Slowly pour the frosting over the center of the cake.
16. Spread it to the edges of the cake, allowing some frosting to run down the sides.
17. Chocolate Ganache:.
18. Microwave the chocolate and cream in a glass bowl for 2-3 minutes, or until the chocolate is melted; whisk until smooth.
19. Gradually add the butter, whisking until smooth and melted.
20. Cool, whisking often, until spreading consistency, about 15-20 minutes.
21. Praline Frosting:.
22. Combine the butter, brown sugar and whipping cream in a 2 quart saucepan; bring to a boil, stirring often.
23. Boil 1 min; remove from heat and whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla.
24. Add the pecans and stir gently for 2-5 minutes, or until the frosting begins to cool and thicken slightly.
25. Pour immediately over the cake.

Reviews

[missifish]

I made this for my husband's birthday. It was delicious, but I'd say maybe a LITTLE too sweet. It was so good though, that we all plowed through it! Even though we had to take naps after eating, it was worth it! I made the praline topping with walnuts, not pecans, because my husband prefers those, and the subsitution was really good. I also couldn't get all the praline on the top of the cake, so we made tiny dime sized pralines with the extra, and used them to decorate the bottom of the cake. YUMM!

[LadyRatri]

I made this cake for my and my friend's birthday party. Everyone thought it looked and tasted amazing. The cake itself had a great texture, the ganache was subtle and the praline frosting was a perfect texture. One change I made was to cut the sugar in the cake back to 1 and 1/2 cup. The praline topping was so sweet it worked out verry well to have the cake a little less sweet. One step I will add next time I make this is to sift the flour. I did have tiny lumps. Also, my ganache did not set up quite as much as I wanted, so I whipped it with my hand mixer for a few minutes to make it more spreadable.

[oceanmom]

This is a wonderful, very sweet, very chocolate cake! And it is fairly easy to make. Unfortunately, I did not read the directions thoroughly and used 3 9" pans instead of 8" pans so my cake wasn't as high as it should have been and not as airy. But it was delicious and dense.. Next time I would make the ganache first.. it was very stubborn and took a long while to become speadable. I doubled the ganche so there would be extra filling but I don't think I would do that again. I threw quite a bit out. I poured the praline mixture over the cake just before it hardened so it would go down the side of the cake, worked fairly well as you can see in the picture.. I too, as one person suggested put it immediately in the refrig as the ganche started to melt on the sides from the hot praline mixture. Thanks for sharing--I took it to work to celebrate Fat Tuesday.