AAA Birthday Cake Wanted! I’m not kidding, with the cake with cocoa filled with custard I celebrated the 15 years of blog Le Ricette di Bea on April 23! An important birthday: for humans, it marks the transition to adolescence, for blogs it symbolizes a milestone.
Being able to say out loud that “we got there together, with joys and disappointments, with important victories and some small grudges”. Wonderful experiences linked to the world of food that I will always carry in my heart, with the people I met thanks to this passion, with all the recipes shared with you over the 15 years, supported by the trust and warmth that a community of over 35,000 users can give!
Thanking you one by one would be impossible, so symbolically I prepared this cake decorated with a big heart of cream in the center that represents me, my blog and you! The many monthly views constantly increasing, your comments, messages, requests for advice or to test your recipes that didn’t turn out well, in short, a continuous and constant exchange that has accompanied my days for 15 years!
Let’s start the day with a sweet or savory cuddle in the group and on the Facebook fan page of Le Ricette di Bea with the Recipe of the Day, an unmissable appointment for the entire community! Then we continue on the blog or on the YouTube channel with the video recipe, we keep updated with the Instagram and TikTok stories! A virtual world where you can choose your favorite social media, or more than one, to not miss any new recipe! I can thank you because in these 15 years you never made me feel alone, not even for a moment!
I chose to prepare a cocoa cake and fill it with grandmother Licia’s custard because lately I noticed that you really enjoy simple recipes, from desserts without butter or eggs, to preparations with little sugar. I chose to use the homemade custard because it is always among the top 5 most read recipes on the blog every year! I thought of the cocoa cake after publishing about two weeks ago the version of the cocoa cake without eggs and butter that you really liked. From the union of these two preparations comes the perfect dessert to celebrate the birthday of Le Ricette di Bea!
Below you will find both the custard recipe with ingredient list and useful tools for preparation, as well as the recipe for the soft and delicious cocoa cake with the step-by-step video recipe! I’ll leave you other recipes that you can prepare using the custard to discover new perfect desserts for many occasions!
On the blog you will also find the collection sweet recipes with homemade custard, all the desserts I prepared using this ingredient as the main character!
- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Very Economical
- Rest time: 2 Hours
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 6People
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter and Spring, All Seasons
- Energy 522.84 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 78.08 (g) of which sugars 36.60 (g)
- Proteins 14.11 (g)
- Fat 21.22 (g) of which saturated 6.48 (g)of which unsaturated 13.92 (g)
- Fibers 8.77 (g)
- Sodium 54.27 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 125 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for Cake with Cocoa Filled with Custard
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cups flour (for soft cakes)
- 1/4 cup potato starch (or corn starch)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 packet baking powder
- 2 eggs (at room temperature)
- 5 tbsp vegetable oil (in my case sunflower)
- 2/3 cup milk (at room temperature)
- 1 vial vanilla extract
- as needed chocolate chips
- 2 cups whole milk (at room temperature)
- 2 eggs (at room temperature)
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 vanilla extract
Tools for Preparing Cocoa Cake with Custard
- 1 Saucepan
- 1 Mixer
- 1 Whisk
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Stove
- 1 Towel
- 1 Food Wrap
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Mixer
- 1 Scale
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Sieve
- 1 Pan
- 1 Oven
- 1 Knife
- 1 Piping bag
Steps for Recipe Cake with Cocoa Filled with Homemade Custard
We start the custard preparation by taking a saucepan with high edges, breaking the two eggs inside it and working them with the mixer together with the sugar until obtaining a frothy cream. Gradually add the flour while continuing to work with the mixer. Place the saucepan on the stove, with medium-low heat, and add the vanilla extract.
Turn off the mixer and take a whisk and continue stirring the cream. We will slowly add the amount of milk gradually. Let it thicken while continuously stirring with the whisk the cream. It will take more than 5 minutes to thicken well the cream, we must be careful not to create lumps. The homemade custard will be smooth, with a light and shiny color, and will be soft like the one you see in the photo below.
When we turn off the stove we must continue gently stirring the custard for a few minutes. Then cover with a damp cloth and let it cool at room temperature. Once cold, we can cover the surface with some food wrap and place it in the refrigerator.
As mentioned, I prepared the custard, with which I filled this cocoa cake, the night before its actual use, to be sure it was completely cold and of the optimal consistency to be transferred to a piping bag to decorate the cake.
With the cream ready, we can proceed with the cocoa cake starting with gathering all the necessary ingredients and useful tools for the preparation. Place everything on a work surface, weigh the ingredients, sift the flours together with the baking powder packet and start! Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) with static mode, place an oven rack in the middle where we will then place the pan for baking the cake. Break the two eggs into a bowl, add the sugar and activate the electric mixer. Create a nice dense and lump-free foam, it will take about 5 minutes.
We can now add the liquids to the mixture, so the amount of milk and sunflower oil while continuing to work with the mixer. Add the cocoa powder, preferably unsweetened since we’ve already added enough sugar and it will contrast with the sweetness of the custard that we will add later. Now proceed with the flours, spoon by spoon, incorporating them into the rest of the mixture. As I often show in video recipes, I prefer to sift directly into the bowl with a small sieve. Turn off the mixer and take the 24 cm pan.
Grease the pan with some oil or, if preferred, with some butter, pour the mixture and level the surface with a spatula. Sprinkle with some sugar and bake the cocoa cake. Baking time is 40 to 45 minutes, always do the toothpick test before turning off the oven. Then let it cool, for at least two hours, on the kitchen counter.
After this time has passed, we can proceed with the cake filling. Take the custard from the refrigerator and transfer it to a piping bag. Remove the cocoa cake from the pan and cut the cake horizontally with a sharp knife.
Fill the base with the cream, I made circles from the outside in. If you like, you can add some chocolate chips as I did, they will add more taste and indulgence to our dessert! Place the top part to close the dessert and decorate the surface with more custard, you can play with shapes and decorations that you like best. I chose to create two outer circles and the inner heart since I was about to celebrate the blog’s birthday!
If you like, you can sprinkle the cake with powdered sugar before serving the dessert to your family or your guests. I can only wish you a good appetite and remind you that I’m waiting for you here on my blog with many easy, quick, and delicious recipes like this one!
Tips, Variations, and Storage:
Main Tips: I recommend working the batter well to avoid lumps, as this cake uses both cocoa and flours that can form lumps during preparation. The room temperature of eggs and milk is critical. As mentioned, the cream must be cold and firm to be used as a filling for the cocoa cake.
Variations: If you don’t want to fill the dessert with custard you can use whipped cream or hazelnut or pistachio cream, if you prefer. You can replace the amount of sunflower oil with butter, about 70 grams. You should leave the butter at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before using it so it can be well softened.
You can store the cake with cocoa filled with custard in a cake holder with a lid for one day, then you must transfer it to the refrigerator, since the cream is present, to prevent it from spoiling. I recommend not filling the dessert until you are sure to serve the cake to your guests, friends, or family, so the cream stays in the refrigerator until that moment.
