seeking ultimate homemade chocolate celebration cake

A special occasion is warranting a serious chocolate cake this weekend but I'm feeling uninspired by my usual options and didn't find a thread on forum favorites. In books I have Dorie Greenspan, David Leibovitz, Rose Berenbaum, Tartine, Smitten Kitchen, lots of Gourmet and Martha Stewart etc. Would love to know your best picks from these and (more importantly, other) sources far and wide.

a couple of potential considerations, in case they prompt anyone's recs:

since it's a celebration I somehow feel it should skew more towards a layer cake rather than a single slim style

open to cake plus mousse plus ganache type concoctions you recommend

love love love chocolate intensifiers like coffee, cinnamon, browned butter, brown sugar; convinced that high quality butter and high quality cocoa powder make a big difference; often suspect that oil based cakes, while superficially moist, are less interesting than butter based

hugely partial to cream cheese, whipped cream, and sour cream frostings; biased against butter cream.

Thanks as always!

Sweetapolita is one of my favorite cake blogs. Great for generating ideas!

A few months ago, I made a version of this Vanilla Cream-Filled Double Chocolate Cake that was a show-stopper.

I've made this Chocolate Stout Cake a bunch of times, and it always gets raves - definitely follow the review suggestions to make a half-recipe, which is plenty for 2 layers.

Maida Heatter's September 7th Cake is pretty awesome and celebration-worthy.

https://sites.google.com/site/oakcottag ... r-7th-cake

Here's a good photo on this recipe web site, though note that the rendition on this site seems slightly different from the original.

http://www.acraftyb.com/2010/09/september-7th-cake.html

For celebration cakes, I'm a fan of the three layer cakes from the Baked cookbooks (the Brooklyn Red Hook bakery). In terms of their chocolate cakes, I've made and loved the sweet and salty cake and the coffee chocolate cake. I was a little less impressed with the grasshopper cake.

I've had my eye on this cake from Gale Gand and published in Fine Cooking:
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/choc ... -cake.aspx

It uses a whipped-cream filling between the layers and incorporates coffee and whiskey flavors. Not for kids, but sounds great.

Cheers, Jen

A "tried & true" favorite of mine is a classic from Marcel Desaulniers "Death by Chocolate" - Chocolate Cashew Brownie Cake. Only I've always used pecans - slightly cheaper and I like the flavor combo better. I've produce this cake en masse professionally and also brought it to family occasions to rave reviews. It's three layers of brownie cake, two layers of nut ganache, and a smooth ganache coating. Turns out fudgy, yet moist. A scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream really pushes it over the top!

Ina Garten's chocolate layer cake is lovely -- and the coffee components are right in your wheelhouse. Just make sure you use the "good" cocoa and vanilla! (Do watch the video, too. Really nicely done.)

If you're going to do Death by Chocolate you have to do Death by Chocolate
http://baking.food.com/recipe/death-by- ... lis-356724

(I think when I did this some years ago it took 2 days and cost $40 in ingredients)

Eva Luna wrote:I've made this Chocolate Stout Cake a bunch of times, and it always gets raves - definitely follow the review suggestions to make a half-recipe, which is plenty for 2 layers.

I've made this same cake several times. It is awesome.

Our go-to for choc. cake has long been the "Decadent Chocolate Cake" in the original Silver Palate book. We are not choc. obsessives, and certainly there are some great ones that you already have as well as mentioned up-thread. I offer this as worthy of consideration as a straight-up, rich, moist, deep-flavored classic.