One of the most important things necessary to sculpt a novelty cake is a perfect base. A cake that can be cut and manipulated without falling apart. A cake with a soft crumb and yet taste delicious. This chocolate cake perfect for carving will prove the best sculpting cake recipe for you.
When you ask a person how they like their cake, almost everyone will say rich and moist. But carving a rich and moist cake is definitely difficult and not recommended for novelty cakes and a cake not rich and moist is definitely not desirable. So... MUST find the right balance. I think I did. This is the best sculpting cake recipe you will love.
About this cake
I wish you could see how soft and moist my carving cake recipes are. I have been using this chocolate cake recipe for carving - for a long time now and carved many cakes very successfully. It's not as dense as a pound or sponge cake but not as delicate as a simple moist, classic chocolate, or death by chocolate cake recipes.
I strongly recommended that you freeze the cake for an hour at least before you carve it. Freezing the cake helps with fewer crumbs. So while I say this is dense it's also rich and delicious. Some of the cakes I've made with this chocolate as well as my vanilla cake for carving recipe have had rave reviews from my customers.
Ingredients and substitutes
- Butter - I prefer to use unsalted butter so I can control the quantity of salt in my recipe. And yet, if salted butter is all you have, go ahead and use it. Just omit salt in the recipe.
- Brown sugar - contributes to a nice soft tender crumb and gives a nice color. The molasses in the brown sugar adds a caramel-like flavor too.
- Eggs - Always use large size eggs when baking unless specified. The size of the eggs varies these days significantly. So as a guide one large egg weighs between 50 to 60 grams.
- Vanilla - A good quality vanilla will make a huge difference in anything you make. Premium vanilla can be expensive, which is why I make my homemade vanilla extract, bean paste or sugar.
- All-purpose flour - Yes, regular plain flour (maida) is all you need for this cake. And, since self-raising flours contain leavening they must be used with caution.
- Cocoa Powder - I use regular Dutch-processed cocoa powder for my cake baking.
Step by step instructions (pin)
- Preheat your oven to 160 C / 320 F.
- Grease and line the baking pan you plan to use for your novelty cake.
- Have all your ingredients ready at room temperature.
- Sift dry ingredients - flour, salt, cocoa powder, and baking powder.
- In a bowl of a stand mixer, cream soft room temperature butter, sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy.
- Add the flour mixture followed by the buttermilk and coffee in three batches.
- Lastly, add vanilla and give it one more mix.
- Your batter is ready.
- Pour into your baking pan/pans and bake for about 30 to 40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
- If using two pans the baking time will be reduced - you can check at about 25 mins.
- Cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes invert on to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Once cooled wrap in two cling wraps, followed by aluminum foil.
- Place in the freezer for at least one hour before you carve into it.
How much cake do I need?
One of the most common questions I get is how much cake do I need? When it comes to Novelty cake it's difficult for me to say.
For example, I can't say you need two of these for a car cake. Why? because it depends on the size of your car template. So this cake serves 15 to 20 people. But, it can be double and more successfully.
So, if you choose to make a cake for 60 then you'd multiply the recipe times 3 and follow the same method as below.
Frequently asked questions
I use all-purpose flour. And yet, you can also use cake flour. Cake flour is manufactured for cakes and has a finer texture than all-purpose flour. Also, the protein content in cake flour is higher than AP flour.
Using unsalted butter means you can control the amount of salt in the recipe. Having said that, you can use salted butter in most cakes and omit the salt in the recipe.
Often people think a dense cake can be kept for longer. True, it does have a longer shelf life than most other cakes. And yet, even a dense cake will stay at room temperature for only 3 to 4 days. You can keep it longer if you wrap well in plastic and keep it in the fridge.
This chocolate carving is delicious on its own, especially when it's fresh so don't be afraid to use it for not just sculpting. I like to use a butter-based or chocolate-based frosting for my sculpted cakes. The butter and chocolate both firm with chilled which works in favor of cutting and manipulating the cake as needed.
For most of my sculpted cakes, I use any one of these frostings
Velvet American buttercream,
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Chocolate Ganache or white chocolate ganache
Don't be afraid to try my other flavored buttercream recipes as well - see more than 30 plus buttercream frosting recipes
No, this recipe works best with eggs but I do have an eggless chocolate fudge cake that I have used for carving and is very popular with my visitors on this blog.
The best test for cake doneness is when you insert a skewer into the center of the cake and it comes out clean without any cake better. Additionally, you will also notice that the cake starts to pull away from the edges of the pan.
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Chocolate Cake Perfect for Carving The BEST Sculpting Cake Recipe
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Ingredients
Makes 2 x 7-inch cakes or one 9 x 13-inch rectangle cake
- 8 oz (226 g) Butter (2 sticks, 1 cup) unsalted, room temperature
- 1 cup (220 g) Brown sugar light
- 2 cups (250 g) All-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp Salt
- ¾ cup (65 g) Cocoa powder
- 1 ½ tsp Baking powder
- ¼ cup (60 ml) Coffee brewed (1 tsp coffee powder in ¼ cup water)
- 1 cup (240 ml) Buttermilk
- 4 Eggs large
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 160 C / 320 F.
- Grease and line the baking pan you plan to use for your novelty cake.
- Have all your ingredients ready at room temperature.
- Sift dry ingredients - flour, salt, cocoa powder, and baking powder.
- Cream soft room temperature butter, sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy.
- Add the flour mixture followed by the Buttermilk and coffee in three batches.
- Lastly, add vanilla and give it one more mix.
- Your batter is ready.
- Pour into your baking pan/pans and bake for about 30 to 40 minutes until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
- If using two pans the baking time will be reduced - you can check at about 25 mins.
- Cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes invert on to an oven rack to cool completely.
- Once cooled wrap in two cling wraps, followed by aluminum foil.
- Place in the freezer for at least one hour before you carve into it.
Recipe Notes
Equipment
Nutrition Information
The nutrition information and metric conversion are calculated automatically. I cannot guarantee its accuracy. If this data is important to you please verify with your trusted nutrition calculator. Thank you
Katherine
Hello. Can I skip the coffee?
Veena Azmanov
Yes, Absolutely, Kathrine
Lucie
Hi Veena,
Just wondering how thick/tall this cake comes out? I can't quite figure it out from the photos.
Thank you
Veena Azmanov
Its not thick Lucie. A little over one inch
Yvonne
Yve
Hi, can I carve this cake, fill and cover with ganache then freeze for 6 weeks, then be able to cover in fondant once thawed out? Trying to get ahead. Thanks
Veena Azmanov
This cake does freeze well but I would highly recommend doing the carving, ganache, and fondant after 6 weeks rather.
marion
Veena, just wanted to confirm your notes that butter based cakes are good for sculpting cakes and fondant cakes
Also, do they tend to be dense cause I feel dense cakes add to the weight of the cake making it quite heavy after frosting and decorating with fondant
Veena Azmanov
No not all butter-based cakes are dense.
When I say butter-based cakes are better, I mean they hold better because when sculpting and frosting we chill the cake so the butter chills make the cake more stable.
Hope that makes sense.
marion
Ohh that's great Veena, yes it does make sense, really appreciate your quick replies ❤