Eggless Dubai chocolate cake is a scrumptious chocolate cake filled with crunchy pistachio cream kataif and topped with creamy ganache.
It has been more than an year since I posted new recipes in my blog. You can consider this cake as my comeback post. We celebrated out 23rd wedding anniversary this week and I made this cake as part of celebration. We don’t do grand celebration or parties, it is just the three of us peacefully enjoying a slice of cake.
This cake was truly amazing. The kataif layer is made with white chocolate and is extremely rich and sweet. By itself, you can’t have more than a spoon of this filling, but when you pair it with a dark chocolate cake and ganache, they help cut down the sweetness. They also wonderfully compliment the sweetness and richness,
Serve it slightly chilled or at room temperature for the best taste. I have used my eggless oil based chocolate cake recipe for this. But if you have a favourite cake with or without eggs, use it. The cake should fit a 7″ round tin. The filling and topping are of perfect quantity for a 7″ round cake. Using a cake ring will make it very easy to assemble the cake without much effort.
Eggless Dubai Chocolate Cake Recipe – Prep your ingredients
Start with baking the cake. Also remove the chocolate from fridge and set aside to bring them to room temperature. If you are like me and store huge blocks of chocolate in fridge, it would be better if you remove them 4-5 hours before assembly. Room temperature chocolate is easier to melt compared to cold chocolate.
Transfer the cake to wire rack and let it cool completely. By the time the cake is done cooling, you can finish the pistachio layer.
Making the Kataif Pistachio layer for the cake
I had roasted kataif pasty ready, so the pistachio cream came together very easily. If you cannot source kataif pastry, you can easily make it at home. Or use the finest vermicelli available in the market. Do not use vermicelli that we use for upma. It won’t be good.
You can either roast the vermicelli or kataif pastry in a tawa or you can also spread it on a baking sheet and bake in oven until it is golden. It is upto you. Whichever method is convenient, go for that.
For grinding pistachios, you can either use a mixer or a food processor. My food processor doesn’t grind it fine, so I use my mixer grinder. One disadvantage of using mixer grinder is the mix become too hot. So stop at regular intervals, use pulse mode and grind the pistachios. They first turn into powder. But keep of pulsing and they will start clumping. Then the oils will be released and the pistachios turn into paste.
Melt the chocolate and then add the pistachio paste and kataif pastry and your filling is ready.
How to make Dark Chocolate Ganache for topping the Chocolate Cake
For the topping, I have used milk based ganache, but you can also go for cream based ganache which we make regularly for frosting. Adjust consistency of cream depending on the climate. For hotter climate, use less cream and for colder climate use more cream.
Line the cake ring with OHP sheet stripes. You can also use cling wrap. I feel that OHP is easier to manage and can be reused for your next cake.
Assembling the Eggless Dubai Chocolate Cake
Place the ring on top of the cake board. Line it with OHP. Trim the top of the cake and place it inside the ring. I use an adjustable ring, which makes the work easy. Then adjust the ring to fit the cake. Transfer the pistachio kataif mix and spread it evenly. Then comes the ganache. Be gentle while spreading it out. Finally decorate with slivered pistachios.
I also made a cheesecake last year with the same flavour combinations. If you are interested in the recipe, please check out the cheesecake by clicking on the image below.
Eggless Dubai Chocolate Cake Recipe
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Cake
- 130 g Maida/ All Purpose Flour
- 150 g Sugar powdered
- 30 g Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ½ tsp Baking Powder
- 100 ml Milk
- 100 ml Curd/ Yogurt
- 75 ml Refined Oil
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 50 ml Hot Water
- 1 tsp Instant Coffee Powder
For Pistachio Cream Kataif
- 100 g Roasted Kataif
- 200 g White Chocolate
- 200 g Pistachios
For Chocolate Ganache Layer
- 200 g Dark Chocolate
- 60 ml Milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160C.
- Line and grease a 7” round pan and set it aside.
- Combine sugar and cocoa powder in a mixer jar and grind until fine.
- In a large bowl, combine maida, sugar cocoa mix, baking powder and baking soda and whisk to combine.
- Add milk, curd, vanilla and refined oil and mix well until combined.
- Add instant coffee powder and hot water and mix until the batter is smooth.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Remove the tin and cool on wire rack.
- Flip the tin, remove the parchment paper and allow the cake to cool completely.
- Using a serrated knife trim the top of the cake.
- Place the cake on the cake board, line the cake with ohp sheet and an adjustable cake ring.
For the Pistachio cream Kataif
- Break kataif pastry to tiny pieces and roast in a tawa until golden. Allow it to cool completely.
- Grind pistachios in a mixer jar. Pulse the mix until the pistachios form a paste.
- In a bowl, melt white chocolate.
- Add the pistachio paste and use a spatula to mix both until there are no lumps left.
- Add the roasted kataif pastry and mix well.
- Transfer this mix on top of the cake and spread it out evenly.
For the Chocolate Ganache
- Melt dark chocolate in a bowl.
- Add milk and mix well until the ganache is shiny and lump free.
- Pour this on top of the kataif pistachio cream.
- Use a spatula to spread it out evenly.
- Decorate with slivered pistachios.
- Slice the cake at room temperature.
