For serious chocolate lovers! This decadent chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling is THE thing to satisfy your chocolate craving!
Table of Contents
I have to warn you, this cake is SO delicious it might just become a reason for a fight in your family. 🙂
I made this chocolate cake for my husband for Valentine’s Day. The cake turned out amazing. Rich and moist, irresistibly chocolaty. Although just two of us could have finished the whole cake without problem, we shared it with our family. (Yep, we’re that awesome! 😉
Couple weeks later when I was visiting, my mother-in-law told me about the drama over the last piece of cake. My father-in-law loves chocolate and, apparently, he was savoring the cake one small piece at a time. When he came back to enjoy his last piece of this heavenly dessert, it was nowhere to be found. No one knew where it is, and no one would admit eating it. Yep, just like that, the last slice of the cake had disappeared without a trace. Sadly, my poor father-in-law had been grumpy for a week, wondering about the mystery of the missing cake.
That was a great excuse for me to bake this cake again.
The first one had a small issue that I needed to fix. The problem was that I was lazy and baked the whole cake in one deep 9-inch cake pan, instead of two. This caused an ugly sinkhole in my final cake. See below.
I know it doesn’t really matter, as it still tastes wonderful.
However, I think it’s important to understand the reason behind the problems, so we can avoid them later. So, here is the explanation.
Since the batter is very runny due to high amount of liquid, there isn’t enough structure to hold a high rise even after the cake is baked completely. That’s why it’s important to bake them in two separate pans.
Now, here is the step-by-step instruction for this amazingly delicious cake.
If you don’t have instant espresso powder, use strong coffee instead, or skip it. You really won’t taste the coffee, it just enhances the chocolate flavor.
While the cake is cooling, prepare the chocolate mousse filling.
To assemble the cake:
To slice the cake into even layers, I used this Zenker Layer Cake Slicer Kit. It makes perfectly even layers and I love it. Make sure that the cake is completely cooled before slicing though, otherwise it’ll break easily.
You can find the detailed recipe for chocolate ganache here on my blog.
Voila!
It paired really well with my homemade vanilla bean ice cream!
Hope you’ll try this cake soon. And please don’t fight over that last piece of cake. Enjoy!
Supreme Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Mousse Filling
Ingredients
For cake:
- 2 cups 250gr all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups 300gr sugar
- ¾ cup 90gr unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup 120ml hot water
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso coffee
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 cup 240ml milk, at room temperature
- ½ cup 120ml Greek yogurt, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
For mousse filling:
- ½ cup 120ml hot water
- 4 tablespoons 30gr unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon instant espresso coffee
- 1 ½ cup 260gr bittersweet chocolate chips
- 2 cups 480ml heavy cream, cold
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/3 cup Nutella
For chocolate ganache:
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 tablespoon softened butter optional
Instructions
- To make the cakePreheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease two 9-inch round cake pans.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, mix together water and instant espresso coffee. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl with paddle attachment, mix together eggs, milk, yogurt and pure vanilla extract until well combined. Add half of the flour mixture for a minute, then add the remaining mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in the espresso water.
- Pour the batter into two cake pans. Bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire racks for 10 minutes. Then remove the cakes from the pan and cool completely.
- Meanwhile, let’s prepare the chocolate mousse filling. In a small bowl, dissolve cocoa powder and instant espresso powder in a hot water.
- In a double boiler, melt chocolate chips until nice and smooth. Remove from heat and cool slightly.
- In a mixing bowl with whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream with the sugar until hard peaks form.
- Stir in the cocoa mixture and Nutella into the melted chocolate. Add half of the whipped cream and mix everything together with folding motion. Fold in the remaining whipped cream and mix well until no white streaks remain. Refrigerate until the cake is cooled completely.
- To assemble the cake, slice the cakes horizontally into two equal layers, using a long serrated knife. If your cakes got a small hump as pictured, just slice it off.
- Put the first cake layer into a springform pan and spread about a little less than 1/3 of the mousse filling. Then put the next layer of the cake and spread the mousse and so on until the cake is built. Make sure to leave a bit of mousse to cover the top of the cake. A very thin layer of mousse on top is all you need. Refrigerate the cake for at least 2 hours or overnight.
- Once the cake is cooled, make the chocolate ganache. In a small saucepan, bring heavy cream to a simmer. Do not boil. Pour hot cream over chocolate chips, and let it sit for good 2 minutes. Then mix well until smooth for couple minutes. Stir in butter to add some shine.
- Remove the springform sides. Pour the ganache over the cake while the ganache is still runny, if you want smooth glaze. Or, you can let it cool and thicken a little bit to spread as a frosting.
Nutrition
hi, the mousse is very delicious and very smooth. I spreaded it easily in layers with the cake. however it hardened the next day so you don’t feel the creaminess anymore while eating the cake. Is there a way for it to stay creamy?
Hi, MarieChristine. Glad you loved the mousse. It helps if you bring the cake to room temperature. Chocolate hardens in the fridge, that’s why the mousse is firm. But bringing it to room temperature should also soften the mousse. About 30 min on the counter should do it. Let me know if that helps. And thank you for your feedback.
Hi, just came across your website and this fabulous chocolate cake. I can tell by the ingredients you used that the chocolate mousse will be amaxing… great depth of chocolate flavor ( I don’t recall seeing bittersweet or semisweet chocolate combined with cocoa powder and Nutella…one of my most favorite things).
Cannot wait to try it! Will be making it soon for a friend’s birthday.
So happy you found this cake. It’s quite delicious cake indeed. Hope you and your friend will love it too. Let us know, Damiana!
Made this over the weekend for my daughter’s birthday and it is so addictive! The cake is dense and fudgy, but not too sweet. I loved the mousse!! It’s not overly sweet but takes the cake to the next level! Definitely a keeper. Thanks for sharing.
Laura
Also, a question… how long will this cake last in the refigerator?
Thank you for the GREAT cake recipe. I was a bit nervous as I planned to make a very ambitious cake design and I needed a really good recipe to succeed. I decided it might be yours and I am glad I was not wrong. Easy recipe to follow and the quality of the cake and the chocolate mousse is superb!!!! I didn’t made the chocolate as I decided to frost also with the chocolate mousse. I made it for my mom’s 76th birthday. I made 3 x your recipe for my cakes. Thank you, thank you !
Adriana, so happy your cake turned out great. I’d love to see the design you made, it must be a big cake! And I bet your mom was so happy! Happiest birthday to her!!
Hi thanks for the recipe. What can I substitute in place of Nutella for the mouse filling. Thanks
Hi, Chrysoberyl. You can just omit Nutella, if you want to.
Thank you so much for your recipe! I made a gluten free chocolate cake because I have a sensitivity and used your mousse and ganache recipes for the filling and topping. It was fabulous!!! It was for my son’s 17th birthday and he absolutely loved it. My son even said I need to open a bakery because it tasted so good!
Hi, Alescia. I’m so happy you, and especially the birthday boy, loved the cake!!! Thank you for your feedback.
I wonder if I could use milk instead of water to make it more moist I guess
Instead of the 1/2 cup of water use more milk , so in total its 11/2 cups of milk
Hi, Cintia. I guess, you could. I’ve never tested it that way, but I don’t see why you couldn’t. Let me know if you give that a try.
Haven’t tried it yet but I’m not a coffee drinker so how can I make the strong coffee just enough for the cake??
Hey Sandi, you can easily omit the espresso, if you prefer. It just enhanced chocolate flavor.
sorry I take it back, different dry goods have different weights. It would be easier if I could get myself a decent set of US measuring cups. I will put that on my to do list. 🙂
Hey Simon. Glad you found the information that different dry goods have different weights. And just so you know, I highly recommend scale/ weighing the dry ingredients for baking over U.S. measuring cups. That’s how I bake, it’s much more accurate. When I write my recipes, the weight amounts are not just converted using “google”, I actually weigh them myself. So if you have a scale, you don’t have to get measuring cups. Hope the cake turned out good.
Hi Shinee. I completed the cake and it took me a while as it took me most of the day. I must say it came out very well and tasted fanstastic. I didn’t bother cutting off the humps so it was not a flat cake. Yes I used a scale but cups would have been easier.
Thanks for the Recipe.
Yay, so happy to hear you enjoyed the cake, Simon. Thank you for sharing your feedback!
I weighed out 90g of cocoa powder and got over 1 cup…
Interesting, Annue. I assume you used standard U.S. measuring cups for dry ingredients. But I’d go by weight, because that’s how I measure my ingredients.
Hi, I am in the process of making the recipie and I got a bit confused with the amounts of ingredients. Your conversion between cups to Grams is quite wrong I’m afraidwrong I’m afraid. According to google One cup is 340 grams, (not 2 cups (250gr) all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups (300gr) sugar. These amounts just don’t make sense. But it looks yummy I will make the conversions myself, being a European. 🙂
Hi. This cake looks so inviting to me. I wanna make this into 6inches round cake pan in 3 layers. How could i change the procedure. Hopefully you could help me. Thanks n advance.
Hi, Ann. I’ve never tested this recipe in 6-inch pans, so I won’t be able to provide accurate directions.