Ina Garten's Favorite Chocolate Cake Uses A Classic Flavor Enhancer
Coffee and chocolate are two of those ultimate pairings you may not realize have a life beyond that go-to morning cup of Joe and chocolate croissant. These two ingredients can both complement and enhance each other in a way that will make your taste buds lose their minds. Just ask lovers of Ina Garten's famous Beaty chocolate cake who know the secret baking ingredient Garten always keeps in the pantry is instant coffee. This cake has earned its way onto GoldBelly's roster of sweets and is next level because of this coffee-chocolate combination.
The Barefoot Contessa's chocolate cake uses coffee in two distinct ways. First, her recipe uses freshly brewed coffee in the batter and then she breaks out that instant coffee jar and uses these caffeinated grounds in the frosting. But don't worry that the cake will end up with a mocha flavor that is more like a tiramisu cake than a chocolate cake. The fact of the matter is that the coffee is going to enhance the way you experience each bite of your moist chocolate cake. The bitterness of the coffee actually heightens the flavor of the chocolate, bringing out distinctive nuances you might not otherwise taste.
What type of coffee should you use?
Why do they work together? Coffee is the Yin to chocolate's Yang. They are both derived from seeds of tropical plants and work well together because of their similar production processes. This includes fermenting, drying, and roasting the coffee and cacao beans to bring out each of their beautiful, rich notes. That said, cacao beans develop their layers of flavor during a long fermentation and are roasted low and slow. In contrast, coffee beans have a short fermentation process and require a fast, high-temperature roast to bring out all the complex tastes coffee drinkers know and love.
If you are ready to embrace Ina Garten's "wow" ingredient for her chocolate cake and are wondering if the type of coffee you use matters, the answer is, it depends. Garten uses Nescafe instant coffee for her chocolate buttercream frosting, dissolving it in hot water before she adds it to create a sweet, creamy topping for her cake. However, the taste you achieve is going to vary depending on the type of coffee and chocolate you want to use. If you are baking a dark chocolate cake, select a darker roast for both your instant and brewed coffee that you will add to the batter and the frosting. When you are making a milk chocolate cake, opt for lighter roasts. If you like a nutty flavor, try a caramel-flavored coffee. Regardless of what you choose, just know that coffee is the secret weapon to a bomb-dot-com chocolate cake.