I made the Hyde Park Fudge Cake and it was insanely good
I made the Hyde Park Fudge Cake posted a few days ago for my pottery class last night and it was very well received! The whole thing got eaten and two people said it was the best chocolate cake they ever had. I think it was killer and the frosting was worth the price of admission alone: this is my new favorite chocolate icing and I'm very excited to see what else I can use it for. The cake itself has a nice loose crumb and baked up perfectly, it rose very level in the pan and reminded me a lot of the classic Hershey Black Magic cake if you've made that before, from the back of the cocoa box. The icing has a great taste and texture, it sets up into a soft texture pretty quickly, kind of similar to the icing on a hostess cupcake, with a flavor that is like a much better version of a canned chocolate frosting. Kind of a brownie batter taste.
I couldn't help myself and made a few changes, the biggest one being reducing the recipe size down to fit in a 10 cup bundt mold -- but that was a good move because it made the measurements less weird (no more 2/3 of an egg). I'm posting my changes down below and I'll add some additional thoughts too:
Hyde Park Fudge Cake (10 Cup Version)
- 4 oz unsweetened chocolate
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 2 cup sugar
- 2 1/4 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
I followed the instructions from the original, but It baked in about 38 minutes for me. Also I would start the icing at the 20 minute mark of the cake cooling, it came together fairly quickly.
Changes: I doubled the salt and vanilla which I usually do, but it was almost too salty for me, right on the edge. I think next time I'll do like 1.5 tsp. I also added a pinch of salt to the icing, which people told me they liked as well. Instead of unsweetened chocolate I used 85% dark chocolate because my aldi had no unsweetened chocolate yesterday and I couldn't be bothered to go somewhere else. No problem because it gave the cake and the icing a great flavor. The icing is kind of a pain in the ass to make what with the double boiler and melting the chocolate separately, but the end result was PHENOMENAL so I think it's worth it.
I was a little nervous making the cake because it seemed like a lot of liquid, but it came together very nicely. I did it in the stand mixer which was totally unnecessary, next time I'll just mix it by hand. I used the Pam baking spray (where it has flour inside) and I had 0 issues with the cake sticking, it popped out beautifully.
Note on the icing: it took about 10ish minutes for the sugar to fully dissolve in the evaporated milk. I would test it by dipping in a spoon and then feeling the back. For a while it looked like it was dissolved but you could feel the grittiness, so be aware of that. And also, as soon as you add the chocolate/butter mixture, it will start to firm up IMMEDIATELY, so be ready for that.
Overall: you should make this cake!