Chocolate Sheet Cake

An incredibly delicious, ridiculously easy, super moist, one bowl chocolate sheet cake with sour cream chocolate ganache.

You can use your preferred plant-based oil instead of olive oil. For the ganache, use any chocolate you prefer (dark, milk, white or caramelised white chocolate). If you don’t have a 20cm square cake tin, use a rectangular or round tin of similar proportions (just remember to adjust the baking time accordingly).

View the how-to clip here: Alana Smith (@alanasmithsweetphotography) • Instagram photos and videos

Enough for a 20cm square cake (16 generous squares)

CHOCOLATE CAKE BATTER

brown sugar, 330g (1 + 1/2 cup)

plain/cake/all-purpose flour, 225g (1 + 1/2 cup)

cocoa powder, 100g (1 cup)

baking powder, 7.5ml (1 + 1/2 teaspoon)

bicarbonate of soda/baking soda, 7.5ml (1 + 1/2 teaspoon)

eggs, 2

olive oil, 125ml (1/2 cup)

milk, 250ml (1 cup)

boiling water, 250ml (1 cup)

SOUR CREAM CHOCOLATE GANACHE

your preferred chocolate (dark/milk/white/caramelised white chocolate), 250g

unsalted butter, 100g

sour cream, 250g (250ml or 1 cup)

icing sugar, 165g (250ml or 1 cup)

To start, preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan) and grease and/or line a baking tin (I use a 20cm square tin).

For the cake batter, except for the boiling water, place all the ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine (sieve the cocoa powder if lumpy).

Add the boiling water and whisk again until uniform (the mixture will be runny).

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 45 minutes (or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out fairly clean - this cake is super moist, so a bit of cake mixture might stick to the skewer, as long as it isn’t raw cake batter).

Remove the baked cake from the oven, then cool in the tin covered with a clean tea towel.

For the ganache, break the chocolate into blocks and roughly chop the butter before placing it in a large heatproof bowl.

Add the sour cream to the mixing bowl and place it over a saucepan of gently simmering water (taking care not to allow the water to touch the bottom of the mixing bowl).

Stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter have melted (the mixture might look split as this stage).

Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk in the icing sugar until silky smooth.

Allow the ganache to cool at room temperature until a spreadable (or piping) consistency (you can make the ganache while the cake is in the oven baking).

Once the cake is completely cool and the ganache spreadable, top the cake with ganache before slicing into squares.