I couldn’t wait to make this recipe. I’ve been dreaming of my version of the ultimate double chocolate cake for months. Slightly fudgy yet fluffy layers of rich black cocoa cake sandwiched with silky, thick chocolate frosting. I’ve been waiting for a reason to celebrate. A birthday, or a big holiday. So, I chose Valentine’s Day. Not because I wanted to celebrate the holiday, but because Yellowjackets season 3, my favorite show, premiered. What better way to celebrate my personal TV Christmas than with the craziest, most over the top chocolate cake ever. The kind you would dream of if you were stranded in the woods.

My Favorite TV Show

For those who are unfamiliar, Yellowjackets is not for everyone. It’s extremely tense, heavy, dark, gruesome, and sad. But, it also has many moments of levity and humor. The acting is brilliant and the plot is incredible. The show is about a group of teenage girls (and a few dudes) who crash on the way to their national soccer final, somewhere in the Canadian wilderness. They are forced to scavenge, build, and survive in the woods for 19 months until they are rescued. It’s like Lord of the Flies, but teenage girls. The pilot of the first season starts with a vignette from the future – hunting each other for sport. And for food.

It’s super dark and scary, so I would highly recommend it if you love horror. But, if you don’t, it has a lot of comedy and an incredible cast. The show also focuses on the survivors 25 years later. Which is easier to watch but also filled with complex and murderous situations. I first discovered Yellowjackets when it was getting buzz after season 1 aired. I was hesitant as someone still feeling burned from the ending of Lost, over a decade later. There was nothing else for me to watch at the time, so I gave it a shot. I remember putting it on in the background when I packaged a few card orders and I had no idea what to expect.

Black Cocoa Cake Dreaming

Since then, I have completely fallen down a rabbit hole of theories, who-done-its, and spirited debates about whether the events that take place in the woods are due to psychology or the supernatural. The writers are very good at keeping you guessing. As you can assume, the girls (along with a couple favorite male characters, including their coach Ben) starve, nearly to death. So I’ve imagined myself in their shoes many times. What would I eat? What would I crave? I can imagine that I would be dreaming of chocolate cake constantly.

I’ve been planning my own recipe for a black cocoa cake for months. I’ve made a regular 2-4 layer chocolate cakes many times. With store-bought, half-decent cocoa powder and processed chocolate. But I decided to invest in this cake and pick out special dark chocolate morsels online, as well as black cocoa powder. I’ve never baked with black cocoa powder before, but it gives chocolate cakes a signature dark, deep brown color. I also decided to make a filling akin to pastry cream instead of regular chocolate buttercream.

Celebrating TV and Chocolate

My goal was to finish my recipe in time to enjoy while watching the Yellowjackets premiere. In some sick way I wanted to indulge in something rich and delicious while watching my favorite characters suffer and starve. So, I purchased my ingredients and got all my plans ready. I scoured my house for the right cake pans and tools and did some research on Youtube. Marveling at Alvin Zhou’s 150 hour chocolate cake that is as much of an art piece as it is a recipe. I also researched chocolate cremeux, a rich, silky frosting substitute made with eggs, like pastry cream.

After pausing the season preview for Yellowjackets countless times to screenshot images to analyze and theorize over for hours, I decided to give my brain a break. I wanted to bake. So, on Thursday, I started my black cocoa cake recipe. Dreaming of one of those viral chocolate cake slices from a New York restaurant that has umpteen layers and shiny, glossy frosting. Dark black cocoa cake with an Oreo-like taste. I started with the cremeux by whisking up eggs with a little sugar and lots of cream in a sauce pot until it thickened a little. Then, I poured my hot mixture over a mountainous bowl of high-quality dark chocolate. I couldn’t wait to mix it up. One of my favorite things to do in all of baking.

Chocolate Cremeux

You start with a heavy and heterogeneous mixture that coalesces into a silky smooth chocolate sauce. The more you whisk it the lighter it gets. The chocolate melts and melds into the cream and swirls into whirlpools of darkening brown. When I had a thick chocolate mixture I let it cool before covering it and chilling it to use as frosting. I tasted a dollop on my finger and got excited. After the cremeux was finished I arranged my cake pans and diligently cut out parchment paper circles for about 10 minutes. Greasing and covering my pans with parchment and cocoa powder to ensure the cakes didn’t stick.

I was so excited to make my black cocoa cake batter. It starts with melted butter instead of whipping it with sugar and eggs. I cook it until it browns, then I add black cocoa powder and espresso powder. The shock of heat wakes the flavors up. To that I add coffee and the liquids that make the black cocoa cake moist – oil, buttermilk, and sour cream. It whisks up into a thin brown liquid with oil bubbles on the surface. Next I whip my eggs with sugar until pale and fluffy. The same start to my favorite banana bread recipe, which is almost impossibly moist. I also measure my dry ingredients in a separate bowl and sift them together to help keep the cake light and fluffy.

Double Chocolate Black Cocoa Cake

I was bouncing back and forth between my laptop and mixing batter. Alternating adding the dry and wet ingredients to the egg and sugar mix. When you’re done, you have a silky, black cocoa cake batter, perfumed with brown butter, dark chocolate, and coffee. I spent far too much time measuring my cake batter evenly into the cake pans, weighing them on my digital scale. I felt the perfectionist monster start to take over and decided to just eyeball the rest and trust that everything would turn out okay.

It did. The black cocoa cakes baked beautifully and didn’t rise too much or hump over. The scent of black cocoa cake baking and the steam of baked cake that hits you when you open the oven is intensely beautiful. I hadn’t eaten anything, so I stopped to make lunch while I waited for my cakes to cool. I practically swallowed my food whole so I could get back to work. Making such a big black cocoa cake made me feel like I had a bakery, or a custom wedding cake business, for the day.

When my cakes cooled I flipped them onto my counter, on top of kitchen towels to catch crumbs. The next part is my other favorite thing in baking. Peeling parchment paper off of warm cakes. Please bake a double chocolate cake immediately just so you can experience it. I smelled my black cocoa cakes and resisted poking and prodding them while they cooled more and I removed my cremeux from the fridge. It had thickened into a mousse/frosting consistency that was perfect for icing my cake. Everything was going great and I couldn’t wait to get building. The next highly satisfying part.

Building a Double Chocolate Cake Tower

I lined a cake pan with a high collar of acetate, which I’ve been waiting to use for years. I bought a roll many moons ago with the idea to temper chocolate, but never got around to it. Acetate works perfectly for making mousey layer cakes that may squish and slip if they don’t get to set together in the fridge first. It holds everything together. It also helped me build my cake to double the height of my tall cake pan, which felt like a monumental and exciting step in the tower-building project. I alternated layers of halves of black cocoa cakes that I cut on my turntable and scoops of silky chocolate cremeux until I was halfway done.

The cake was already creeping over the top of the edge. So I added another collar of acetate. It was truly gargantuan compared to what I expected, and I was overjoyed. Part of me was worried what I would do with so much black cocoa cake but I reminded myself it was a great problem to have. I thought of scenes of chocolate cakes in movies. The boy in Matilda forced to stuff his face stood out above all. I imagined presenting this glorious tower of double chocolate cake to the starving soccer team in the wilderness and got a kick out of imagining their reactions.

Baking Burnout + Valentine’s Day

As I placed the last cake half on top I felt my body groaning with exhaustion. Whenever I have a full day of baking, even in my home kitchen, I wonder how bakers do what they do every day. They seem like superheroes to me. I was aching and craving a good sit on the couch. But I was equally determined to see the final product. I had a little frosting left and spread a thin layer on top. Then, I covered it lightly with plastic wrap and placed it in the fridge. I lightly closed the door and let out a satisfied sigh at the end of my hard work.

The next day was Valentine’s Day. More importantly, Yellowjackets day. I woke up bright and early and ran to the TV to watch the first episode. I didn’t dare have my black cocoa cake for breakfast, but I considered it. Thankfully two episodes came out, so I decided to finish my recipe after enjoying the first. Spoilers ahead. In the first episode my favorite character, Coach Ben, found a stash of survival supplies in the ground, including hot chocolate. So, it felt like he celebrated with chocolate with me. My least favorite character fell into a hole and nearly broke her leg. There was an adorable duck named Mortimer (who will certainly get killed by the team before winter) and lots of hijinks in the future timeline. Van, one of my favorites, rolled her eyes at the unnecessary, vapid presentation and lack of depth of a Michelin star meal.

Yellowjackets + Black Cocoa Cake

I finished the first episode and was blown away. My brain was on fire, chugging like a train with theories and ideas. So, to contain my frantic energy, I dove into the kitchen and finished my black cocoa cake. I realized just then that I forgot to put my cake in a pan with a removable bottom. I just laughed to myself. A few years ago I would have panicked and messed it all up. But I took a moment and thought about the best option, deciding to flip it onto my cake platter and then back onto another surface. It worked fine, to my surprise, and was only slightly damaged. Nothing my offset spatula couldn’t fix.

I spent a few minutes smoothing the edges which were glossy and set from the acetate. I love the look of a naked cake, and even with ambitions to adorn the sides with sprinkles or chocolate chips or gold foil, I decided to just leave it natural. Which always works for me because I’m more of a cake person than a frosting person. I smoothed the last bit of my piping bag of frosting on top and piped on a few decorative swirls. I couldn’t wait to eat it, and I was happy with how it looked. So, I took some quick photos and dug in with my biggest chef knife.

Slicing the 16-Layer Double Chocolate Cake

Admittedly I thought of scenes from last season of the girls slicing open their dead teammates as I cut my cake. I felt relieved remembering that I was only dealing with a pile of sugar and eggs and flour. I felt giddy waiting to see the inside of my cake. That idealized ultimate double chocolate cake slice with countless layers of black cocoa cake and frosting. It wasn’t perfect, but when I pulled out the first slice my eyes widened and I felt a joy of pride and excitement looking at it. It looked good enough to devour.

I enjoyed the second episode of Yellowjackets with lunch and a little cake. I’ve never really celebrated Valentine’s Day. Not since I was a kid exchanging valentines and chocolates with my classmates. I used to resent it, and thought of it as a time to remind myself that I was single and alone. Which I always thought made me a failure, or unloved. But lately I’ve felt so confident and empowered by my independence and I’ve learned to not see a relationship or partnership as the ultimate form of self worth. I am complete on my own and happy as I am. Which feels damn good.

Valentine’s Day Thoughts

Valentine’s Day was a day to celebrate myself. To spend time with my favorite TV show and to remind myself of the unseriousness of life. Everything looks pretty darn sunny and easy compared to the lives of the Yellowjackets. I love eating luxurious chocolate cake in the middle of the day. It feels special. My black cocoa cake tastes exactly how you imagine it. Even better if you’re hungry, or lost in the woods. The key is to use high quality ingredients. Most chocolate cake recipes are delicious, but this double chocolate cake is set apart by its luscious chocolate cremeux filling and dark, deep chocolate cake flavor from the black cocoa and brown butter.

I’m excited to continue diving into Yellowjackets conspiracy theories and brace for the next episode. I’m hoping Coach Ben makes it through another season in the woods, but it’s not looking great. Thankfully I have plenty of black cocoa cake to eat if all else fails.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recipes and paintings be sure to check out my Etsy for 100’s of art prints and recipe cards. Use code THEFORKEDRING for 25% off.

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Black Cocoa Cake with Chocolate Cremeux Frosting

My favorite chocolate cake recipe with 16 layers and chocolate cremeux, black cocoa, and brown butter

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword cake, chocolate, chocolate cake

Prep Time 4 hours hours

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 16

Author theforkedring

Ingredients

• 7 large eggs
• 3/4 cup white sugar + 1 tbsp
• 1/2 tsp coffee extract
• 1 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cups light cream
• 1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 cups AP Flour
• 1 1/2 tsp espresso powder
• 3/4 cup black cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup dutch process cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/3 cup strong coffee
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder

Instructions

• To make chocolate cremeux, add chopped chocolate into a heat-proof bowl.
• In a medium saucepan, whisk together 4 eggs, 1 tbsp white sugar, coffee extract, and 1/4 tsp salt. Then, add heavy cream, light cream, and combine.
• Cook mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it slightly thickens, about 5-8 minutes.
• Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate and let sit for 2-3 minutes to melt. Then, whisk or blend into a smooth ganache consistency.
• Cover cremeux with plastic wrap, pressing directly onto the surface of the mixture, and chill for 2-3 hours until thickened.
• Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350°F. Line 4 8” cake pans with parchment paper and grease with butter. Dust with a light coating of cocoa powder, tapping the pans to remove excess.
• In a large sauté pan, cook butter over medium heat until fully melted. Then, cook until lightly browned and bubbly and remove from heat (about 5 minutes).
• Add 1/2 tsp espresso powder and 1/4 cup black cocoa powder and whisk to combine.
• In another bowl, whisk together 3 eggs with 3/4 cup white sugar, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/2 tsp salt. Whip with a hand mixer until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
• To your brown butter mixture add coffee, vegetable oil, sour cream, and buttermilk. Whisk to combine.
• In a large bowl, sift together flour, 1/2 cup black cocoa powder, 1 tsp espresso powder, 1/4 cup dutch process cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and 1 tsp salt.
• Alternate adding your dry ingredients and the brown butter and coffee mixture to your whipped egg mixture, ending with the liquid mixture.
• Divide your cake batter evenly into each of the 4 cake pans. Drop each pan gently on your work surface to remove air bubbles.
• Bake cakes for 30-35 minutes until the cake tops spring back when pressed. If you are using one oven with two racks, switch which 2 pans are on top and on bottom halfway through.
• Remove from oven and let cool for 30-60 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and allow to cool for another 20-30 minutes.
• Remove parchment paper and carefully cut each cake in half, hamburger bun style. Remove your cremeux from the fridge.
• Place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of a high-edged 8” removable bottom cake pan. Line the cake pan on the inside with a tall sheet of acetate, which allows you to stack your cake higher than the pan. If you don’t have acetate, use two separate cake pans and once assembled, stack one on top of the other.
• Place alternating layers of chocolate cake and equal portions of chocolate cremeux in your acetate-lined cake pan. End with a light coating of cremeux and smooth.
• Cover and place in the fridge to chill for at least 2-3 hours or overnight to firm up the cremeux.
• When ready to serve, remove cake from pan and peel off acetate. Slice and serve.