Mini Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Debate time! Which type of chocolate truffles are the BEST?!

A. Sea Salt Caramel

B. Chocolate Coconut

C. Chocolate Raspberry

D. I hate chocolate

Well, I hope nobody thought "D. I hate chocolate". Chocolate is by far one of my go-to sweets - milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate.

In my opinion, and for the sake of this blog post, the answer to the question is...

C. Chocolate Raspberry

Raspberries have a great sweetness to both dark and milk chocolate that, when balanced correctly, brings out the strength of the chocolate even more. I've sought out chocolate raspberry cakes. Not the cakes where the raspberry taste is only in the frosting, but in the actual cake itself. And by cake, I mean the fluffy, spongy, moist cakes.

But, I could not find just that exact mix. I've seen chocolate raspberry tortes where the torte is more on the creamy side. Or chocolate raspberry mousse. And chocolate raspberry cheesecake. I've even seen chocolate cake with raspberry frosting.

To make this Mini Chocolate Raspberry Cake, you will have the chocolate raspberry taste in every bite, guaranteed. Why? Because raspberry will be in the filling AND in the cake itself.

Baking the cake is the easy part because I use a chocolate cake as a base but substitute some of the ingredients for the raspberry and coffee taste. YES, there is some coffee in the cake. To be honest, the amount of coffee is so subtle but perfect.

Some of the changes were:

1. Switching out the typical vanilla extract with raspberry extract

2. Replacing hot water with hot coffee [chocolate raspberry coffee would be great!]

Once you whisk everything together, you should have a consistency similar to milk and if you taste the batter, it should taste like a chocolate raspberry truffle. The consistency is what helps make the cakes moist and flavorful.

To assemble the cakes, is actually a lot of fun because you can use your imagination. In testing this recipe, I found a lot of trial and error with the filling until I found the perfect one.

Let me explain a bit further - my goal with the cake is to have all the flavor in the batter itself to not have to rely on the filling or icing. I didn't want the filling to overpower all the hard work put into making this incredible batter. In testing, I found that going with a traditional butter cream and icing the cake was both too sweet and took away from the batter. I also found that, initially, I wanted to do a two tier mini cake, but with that and the icing at first, was way to sweet where I couldn't take more than two bites. And... who wants that?

I hope nobody said they do...

Finally, I got a winner. I used a round cookie cutter to cut the cake in minis. Each tier was about 1/2 inch high. The filling I still stuck with buttercream, because who doesn't love a good buttercream?

But, I minimized the use of the buttercream on the cake. The cake has the filling between the tiers, but instead of using the buttercream on the entire top to use it as an icing, I only used 3 pipes of the buttercream as a garnish with a raspberry. A mint leaf would also be a great touch. Or, even a coffee bean!

This balance, I found was pure excellence and received the greatest feedback.

Now, enjoy your OWN cake for an afternoon "pick me up"!

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Thank you for reading! I appreciate your support and time to read my posts as Cafe Nessa. Please give me a like on this post if this is something you would buy to add to your dessert/breakfast options.

Stay happy,

Vanessa