Grilled Chocolate Cake
Hot summer day? Skip the oven and bake this Grilled Chocolate Cake on the grill instead! This cake is topped with whipped cream to create a tasty summer dessert.
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I’ve really been on a grilling adventure lately. We grill out quite often during the warmer months. The flavor of grilled foods is fantastic. But recently I’ve been experimenting with cooking foods on a grill that you normally wouldn’t associate with a grill. Case in point: these sweet and spicy grilled nuts. Nuts…on a grill!? Yup, that happened. And they were tasty.
That experiment with the nuts got me thinking. We were essentially using the grill as an oven. An oven with the added smoky flavors that come from grilling. What if I tried to bake something on the grill? I’ve been wanting to try grilled bread for a while, but I decided to try something easier first…cake. This Grilled Chocolate Cake was a fun experiment. And it was quite delicious, too!
Grilled Chocolate Cake
I will admit that grilling this chocolate cake seems a bit over the top. Why not just use the oven instead? Well, maybe it’s blazing hot outside, and you don’t want to fire up the oven. Maybe you just want to hang out in the backyard with friends. Or maybe you’re like me, and you’re just curious to see if it can be done. Spoiler alert: Grilling chocolate cake can in fact be done!
Similar to the process with the grilled nuts, we’re basically using the grill as an outdoor oven for this cake. The key is “baking” the cake over indirect medium heat. I talk a lot about indirect heat in other recipes – namely ones involving smoked meats. However, let’s do a quick review.
Grilling with Indirect Heat
When it comes to grilling, direct heat means cooking the food over a direct flame. Think hamburgers, hotdogs, sausages, etc. Indirect heat is the opposite – not cooking the food over a direct flame. While the food cooks thanks to the heat from the flames, it doesn’t cook directly over the flames.
For a smoker or a kamado grill, you likely have a ceramic insert that goes inside to block the direct flames. For other grills, you can create indirect heat by using the M-O-M method. M-O-M stands for “medium-off-medium.”
In a gas grill, you simply turn on the outer burners while leaving the center burner turned off. For a charcoal grill, you split the charcoal into two smaller piles and place them on the outer edges of the grill. The center is left open. The food (in this case, a baking pan filled with chocolate cake batter) gets placed in the middle of the grill instead of over the flames on the edges.
For the cake, I went with a simple chocolate cake made with cocoa powder and vegetable oil. This is an easy cake to mix together. You can use a stand mixer or you can use a whisk and a large bowl. Your choice. I did include a bit of coffee in this cake as I’m a firm believer that coffee greatly enhances the flavor of chocolate cake. You don’t actually taste the coffee itself, but you will notice a deeper flavor in the cake.
For the frosting, I had to stop and think. I didn’t want a heavy buttercream frosting here. Don’t get me wrong – the chocolate frosting I used for this Chocolate Chocolate Cake would be fantastic here. But I wanted to keep it simple.
Since we are grilling the cake, and it’s likely being served outdoors on a hot day, I opted for a lighter frosting. I just dropped a dollop of homemade whipped cream on top of each slice of cake. (Don’t use that canned whipped cream stuff. Homemade is so easy, and so.much.better!!) The light and airy whipped cream was perfect for this cake.
Another option would be to omit the frosting entirely and just serve this cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. After all, it’s likely a warm day if you’re grilling this Grilled Chocolate Cake, so a scoop of ice cream would be an excellent choice.
Perhaps you already have the grill heated up, and you want to make a dessert. Or perhaps you just want an excuse to fire up the grill. No matter the reason why, I highly recommend this Grilled Chocolate Cake. It’s got a deep chocolate flavor, and it pairs well with the lighter whipped cream or ice cream. I hope you enjoy the taste of this dessert as much as we do – Happy Grilling!
Did you make this Grilled Chocolate Cake recipe at home? Snap a photo and tag me on Instagram (@Spicedblog) – I’d love to see your version!
Grilled Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Cake
- ⅔ cup strongly brewed coffee or espresso
- ¼ cup + 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup + 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- ⅔ cup buttermilk can substitute whole milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil or canola oil
- 1½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
For Topping
- 1½ cups heavy whipping cream
- 2 Tbsp confectioners’ sugar plus more for dusting
- mini chocolate chips and cocoa powder for garnishing
Instructions
For the Chocolate Cake
- Preheat grill to ~350°F using indirect heat (see note).
- Grease and flour (or spray with nonstick cooking spray) an 8”x8” heavy-gauge metal baking pan; set pan aside.
- Using a small saucepan, add coffee and cocoa powder; stir until well combined.
- Place over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Once boiling, remove from heat and let cool.
- Meanwhile, using a stand mixer, add sugar, salt, baking soda and eggs; mix on low speed until well combined.
- Add buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract; mix on low speed until well combined.
- Add flour; mix on low speed until well combined.
- Finally, add the cooled coffee/cocoa mixture; mix on low speed until well combined.
- Pour batter into prepared pan.
- Place cake pan over indirect heat portion of grill. Grill for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out mostly clean.
- Let cake cool in pan for 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire cooling rack.
For Topping
- Using an electric mixer, whip together the cream and powdered sugar until soft peaks form.
- For serving, cut cake into squares and dust pieces with powdered sugar and then add dollop of fresh whipped cream. If desired, garnish cake slices with a pinch of mini chocolate chips and/or cocoa powder on top of whipped cream.
Notes
Looking for more tasty grilling recipes? Check out some of these other favorites, too:
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