I've been baking my way through the easier recipes in Zingerman's Bakehouse, and the Hot Cocoa Cake definitely falls into that category. It's not quite a one-bowl cake, but it's close.
To make the batter, you combine sugar and room temperature butter; add sour cream, eggs, egg whites, and vanilla; incorporate instant coffee dissolved in hot water (I used instant espresso powder); mix in the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt); and stir in chocolate chips (I used chopped Scharffen Berger 62% petite baking squares). You pour the batter into a greased Bundt pan and bake.
I didn't have any problem releasing the cake from the pan after cooling it briefly. I liked the fact that there were lots of chocolate chunks visible in each slice. This cake was very chocolate-y and very good -- the flavor reminded me a lot of a classic brownie. The texture was somewhat dry but not unpleasantly so (I did bake the cake for the minimum specified time but it's possible it was a little overbaked).
To me the cake did not taste anything like hot cocoa, which I would expect to have a milky flavor or perhaps be reminiscent of chocolate ice cream. This cake would have been really good with some vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, and either combination would probably go a long ways to delivering a dessert with a flavor more similar to hot cocoa. But I'm not going to get caught up in the recipe name. It's a good cake no matter what you call it.
Recipe: "Hot Cocoa Cake" from Zingerman's Bakehouse by Amy Emberling and Frank Carollo, recipe available here at epicurious.com.
To make the batter, you combine sugar and room temperature butter; add sour cream, eggs, egg whites, and vanilla; incorporate instant coffee dissolved in hot water (I used instant espresso powder); mix in the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt); and stir in chocolate chips (I used chopped Scharffen Berger 62% petite baking squares). You pour the batter into a greased Bundt pan and bake.
To me the cake did not taste anything like hot cocoa, which I would expect to have a milky flavor or perhaps be reminiscent of chocolate ice cream. This cake would have been really good with some vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, and either combination would probably go a long ways to delivering a dessert with a flavor more similar to hot cocoa. But I'm not going to get caught up in the recipe name. It's a good cake no matter what you call it.
Recipe: "Hot Cocoa Cake" from Zingerman's Bakehouse by Amy Emberling and Frank Carollo, recipe available here at epicurious.com.
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