Momofuku Chocolate Chip Cake

Last week I made a Momofuku Chocolate Chip Cake for me and my sister's birthday. This cake is delicious and the effort put into making the cake is all worth it in the end.

For our birthday, we decided to go out to dinner with a couple of friends. I shared a skewer of rump steak, sausage, bacon and lamb and sides of wedges and salad with my sister. We also ordered a garlic chilli pizza to share with everyone, which was yum.

(everyone's got their phones out!)

If you're not familiar with Momofuku's cakes. They have unfrosted sides because owner Christina Tosi spent a lot of time thinking and developing the layers of the cake, and to cover it would be a shame. This particular cake is a buttermilk choc chip cake, with a passionfruit soak, passionfruit curd, chocolate crumbs and coffee buttercream. She bakes the cakes in a quarter sheet pan, which I didn't have. The cake needed a few pieces of bakeware such as:

• quarter sheet pan (I had to buy one)
• ring mould (ommitted, but my sister made an "apparatus" to replace it (image below))
• blender (I have a dodgy one, which I used anyway)
• acetate (bought at an art shop)

No shop I visited sold ring moulds, or even a 6 inch springform pan. I didn't have time to order one online, plus they aren't cheap. So my sister made a thing by taping the acetate to a 6 inch cake board, as you can see it worked perfectly fine. Although dropping the cake into the mould was challenging. I dropped most of the cake circles (which I cut by using a knife and tracing the bottom of the board) on its side, so when I pushed it flat, curd squished out on the side , that's what is evident on the left of the first image.

I used Hummingbird High's post on her cake as my main reference and this youtube video of Christina assembling the cake herself.

• DAY 1 /  (Mon): chocolate crumbs (can be refrigerated for up to 1 month)
• DAY 2 /  (Tues): passionfruit puree (can be refrigerated for up to 1 week)
• DAY 3 /  (Wed): chocolate chip buttermilk cake (to be refrigerated overnight)
• DAY 4 /  (Thurs): coffee frosting (to be used immediately) + cake assembly
• DAY 5 /  (Fri): EAT CAKE!

(copied straight from Hummingbird High, but since our birthday was on Friday, I adjusted the days to suit me)

The chocolate crumbs was easy enough to make. But on day one I used dutch processed cocoa, and I thought the end result was a bit bitter, either that or I burnt it slightly (right). Anyway, I decided to remake it with normal cocoa, which tastes better (left).

The curd was a challenge, because everywhere I read the recipe calls specifically for passionfruit puree and all I had was passionfuruit pulp. It was liquidy but I took a chance anyway. I was seriously doubting this decision because when I put the curd in the fridge it was almost like water and not thick at all. I was researching other recipes for passionfruit curd but thankfully the curd thickened after a few hours in the fridge. 

The coffee buttercream was annoying to make because of incorporating coffee and butter without a stand mixer was exhausting. The buttercream was also very soft and velvety.

I didn't take many "proper" photos since I was so excited for the cake and couldn't wait another second to eat it. I love this cake so much that I will probably make it again in the near future. Since I now have a bottle of grapeseed oil that has to be used up. 

RECIPE @ Hummingbird High