Macaroni Grill’s Chocolate Cake
Cake ingredients:
3 1/2 cups mayonnaise
3 1/2 cups cold brewed coffee
1/2 oz. vanilla extract
1.75 lbs cake flour
1/8 cup baking soda
6 oz. cocoa powder
1.5 lbs granulated sugar
Ganache Frosting ingredients:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
16 ounces semisweet chocolate, cut into 1/4-inch pieces or use
packaged chocolate chips.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Sift flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and sugar so there are
no lumps and texture is smooth. Make sure that brewed coffee
is at room temp and not warm. This will prevent a reaction
with the baking soda.
Mix ingredients, but do not over mix. Bake in 2 - 13X9 inch
pans or a large sheet cake pan. The manager could not advise
me on the cooking time as they make this commercially, but said
I should use a toothpick to check doneness and make allowances
for different oven usage.
Ganache Frosting:
Bring cream to a simmer in a medium nonreactive saucepan over
medium heat. Remove from heat and add chocolate all at once.
Gently shake pan to make sure all the chocolate is covered in
the hot cream. Leave for 5 minutes.
Whisk the glaze smooth and put it through a fine wire mesh
strainer into another nonreactive saucepan (the glaze is easier
to pour from a pan with a handle–also it is handy to have the
glaze in a pan in case you want to reheat slightly). Pour over
still warm cake.
As far as the presentation of the cake, drizzle frosting on
the plate, place the square of cake on the frosting and top
with a mint leaf.
Note: This recipe makes a huge cake, restaurant size, and
could be halved and still fit in an 13 X 9 oblong cake pan.