Wellesley Fudge Cake

From

December/January 2010

Wellesley Fudge Cake

Wellesley Fudge Cake begins its history roughly a century ago, when the founder of Wellesley College held that, “pies, lies, and doughnuts should never have a place in Wellesley College." Students honed their fudge-making skills in secret and produced some impressive fudge. When we tested recipes for Wellesley Fudge Cake, we found that decades of chocolate overload had desensitized the modern palate, and far more chocolate flavor was required of our recipe. We replaced some of the bar chocolate with cocoa powder bloomed in hot water to deepen its flavor. Traditional recipes called for “thick sour milk," an ingredient we weren’t quite prepared to call for. Instead, we used buttermilk to give our cake a hint of tang. Our filling recipe needed to be simple, and we found an unexpected solution in evaporated milk. Our frosting kept falling apart when we added chocolate to the warm sugar mixture—the heat was causing the fat in the chocolate to separate, a problem easily solved by adding butter and evaporated milk first to cool it down a bit.

Serves 12

We prefer the deep color and balanced flavor of Dutch-processed cocoa powder, but natural cocoa can be used. Although not traditional, two 9-inch round cake pans will work.

Ingredients

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