08 Aug No-Bake Almond & Raspberry Double Chocolate Cake // Eff the Oven August

 Welcome back to Eff the Oven August – one whole month of no-bake recipes!

Things are a little crazy around here today (my car sounds like a crying baby so it’s gotta go to the shop, and I’m supposed to drive 3 hours north to Dallas after work — typical) so I’m going to get straight to the dessert talk.

This No-Bake Almond & Raspberry Double Chocolate Cake is more of a giant truffle than it is an actual cake, but I figure you can put anything into a cylindrical mold, add chocolate and call it cake…right?

The bottom layer is a rich, whipped chocolate-espresso ganache, studded with roasted, slivered almonds. The top is a cross between a white chocolate mousse and a panna cotta, leaning towards the former, with fresh summer raspberries mixed throughout.  The result is a delightfully complementary juxtaposition of textures and flavors. The dark chocolate espresso layer, dense and bitter, is balanced by the airy sweetness of the white chocolate and rounded out with a tart bite from the raspberries.

This recipe makes approximately 4 cups of “batter” (2 cups each of white & dark chocolate), which is enough to make a thinnish 8-inch cake but just a little too much to accurately fill two 3-inch springform pans.

If you’re not following, I’m telling you not to do what I did.

I made 2 mini cakes. I should have made 3. I even have 3 mini-spring forms. But it was late, I was in a hurry and I was determined to fit my “batter” into 2 pans. Some simple math would have saved me. But like I said, it was late. Maybe there was wine involved. Whatever.

All I’m saying is either a) do some measuring if you decide to use 3-inch springform pans, like mine OR b) just use a bigger pan, like a loaf pan lined with parchment or an 8-inch springform pan. Otherwise, you’ll be forced to eat the extra chocolate ganache by the spoonful, which I guess isn’t so bad so long as you aren’t planning on wearing a bikini this century. Technically, we could even call it chocolate gazpacho and bam, whole new blog post.

But I won’t do that to you. Or your love handles. Not that you have love handles. Shit. Digging myself in a hole here. Moving on…

You can totally customize the layers to include whatever little flavor nuggets you like. I used raspberries and almonds because they’re what I had on hand. I played with the idea of swirling some raspberry preserves into the white chocolate. I kinda wish I had. You definitely should. On that same train of thought, throw some peanut butter or hazelnut spread into the chocolate layer. Spike it with some booze, even. Suddenly, my version is feeling pretty boring.

Ok, I’m off to the auto shop and then Dallas for some wedding-dress-trying-on-entourage. You know what that means, champs on champs! Have a great weekend!!!

A few notes about this recipe:

The white chocolate batter ends up being much thinner than the dark chocolate layer — I’m assuming this is because of higher fat content — so I added gelatin to ensure it would set up firmly. If you’re not a white chocolate (or gelatin) fan you could go with milk chocolate or more dark chocolate and leave out the gelatin all together. 

Grease the sides of the pan heavily, otherwise you’re going to have a lot of trouble removing the cake from the pan. Also, notice I keep saying springform — I don’t imagine you’d be able to get this out of a regular round pan at all, though you could just slice and scoop if necessary. 

For the prettiest possible slices, I recommend freezing for 30 minutes before slicing with a sharp knife. 

The dark chocolate layer of this recipe was adapted from 101 Cookbooks, and the white chocolate layer was adapted from Brown Eyed Baker.

XO, Katie

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