Midnight cake, rich chocolate cake with store cupboard ingredients, is as easy as anything. Samin Nosrat’s revival of the old fashioned Betty Crocker black midnight chocolate cake is most welcome.
What is midnight cake?
Midnight cake or black midnight chocolate cake is an old, easy Betty Crocker recipe, one of those that make you think: ‘what? that’s all there is to it?’
Elementary store cupboard ingredients, no butter, no fancy chocolate melting in a bain-marie, mix wet into dry and bake – it is truly what I call a bucket cake. And the outcome is outstanding: dense and chocolatey, rich and moist, and utterly sliceable, fillable, iceable and frostable.
How is this cake so velvety moist?
I’m not an expert on Betty Crocker (who, incidentally, was a fictional character and just a marketing ploy) but thankfully this old, old recipe was revived by Samin Nosrat to be found in her Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat book.
As she rightly says, the choice of fat makes the difference here: oil creates denser texture than butter.
That of course, the word obsessive that I am, makes me think why it isn’t called a ‘midnight oil’ cake? Perhaps because the original Betty Crocker recipe used shortening instead of oil and a lot of people still use that in their midnight cakes. No oil, no midnight oil – which is a shame as it sounds so good.
But I think about it as Samin’s cake, midnight oil regardless. I’ve made it many times since I read the SFAH book: as a base for a birthday gateau, plain for snacking, with vanilla scented cream as per Samin’s orders and with glace cherries in the mix.
This time I reached into the back of the cupboard for a bag of soft dried fruit: pears, apples, apricots, peaches and prunes. Other combinations are obviously just as suitable.
How to make the cake batter
It’s an unbelievably easy cake batter to make, no mixers or other appliances are needed.
Your cake tin should be airtight though, as the batter is completely liquid. If you only have tins with removable base or springform that doesn’t quite close tight enough, line it with parchment. Otherwise half the cake will have to be scraped off the oven floor.
The dry ingredients, flour, cocoa, sugar and raising agents go in one bowl, stirred together to get rid of lumps that cocoa powder tends to clump into. A jug or another bowl will be used to measure out the oil, vanilla extract and boiling water. Don’t put eggs into this mix or they’ll scramble and ruin the cake.
The oil mix should be first whisked into the dry ingredients, only then followed by the eggs.
Pour it into the tin and it’s done, baked in about forty minutes, until the cake probe comes out clean.
How to make the dried fruit topping
It is a wonderful way to use up random assorted dried fruit from the cupboard, but it’s good enough that you might want to purchase various dried fruit for the purpose. It does it make a glorious topping!
Chop the larger ones, apricots, figs or dates into raisin-sized chunks, bring it all to the boil with some sugar and lemon juice and cook until the liquid is absorbed.
The extra sugar is only necessary to make the mix cohesive enough to sit on top of the cake, and the brief boiling will plump up the fruit.
When cooled down, you get a tangy, fruity topping which contrasts beautifully with the rich chocolatey base.
Topping variations
As said above, the classic topping is simple whipped cream and it makes for a divine dessert.
If it’s your preference over cream, make a small quantity of cream cheese frosting.
Dried fruit is nice but in season, mixed berries will work a treat, scattered over a thin layer of mascarpone spread over the cake.
Another option is to go for double-whammy chocolate and dress the cake with white or dark chocolate ganache.
Or if you don’t want to bother with ganache, coarsely grate fridge-cold bar of chocolate over the cake.
Or scatter a handful of Maltesers on top while the cake is still warm.
More chocolate cake recipes
The easiest chocolate yogurt cake with no butter and no need to melt chocolate. This is a quick fix, skinny chocolate cake ready to bake in 5 minutes. With not much added sugar, it is almost healthy.
The best chocolate cake with apricot jam filling and chocolate ganache layers. Rich and fudgy gateau, not very difficult to make. Your next birthday cake?
Silver Palate chocolate cake, a decadent and super moist cake with dark chocolate frosting. New York Times Cooking recipe adapted from The Silver Palate Cookbook.
More chocolate dessert recipes
Gluten free lava-like cookies with dark chocolate and brown sugar. I call them black hearted cookies and they are delicious, with dark gooey centre.
Very chocolate ice cream recipe, easily made at home. Eggless recipe for rich chocolate ice cream made with an ice cream maker and good quality milk chocolate.
Easy chocolate mousse recipe is a simple, two ingredient, eggless chocolate dessert ready in minutes. Delicious whipped cream chocolate mousse which is in fact a whipped ganache served as dessert.