“Your refrigerator is like your life: You get out of it what you put in. Somethings in it just get better with time.And if theres something that s in there too long and just stinking it up, throw it out now!”
There s something great about coming home in the evening and knowing that there s dessert in the refrigerator waiting to be devoured . Thats the magic of no-bake recipes or refrigerator cakes. I ve tried a few no bake recipes , including Prince William’s grooms cake ( which I was thinking of sharing on these pages someday) and am a big fan of them . It by no means beats the aroma of a freshly baked cake or the fudginess of a brownie, but its for the days you don’t want to put in too much effort or even on the oven ! And they do taste pretty darn good!
I love going through baking books and my favorites are the ones by Dorie Greenspan. I found a recipe called Moka Dupont in her book Baking Chez Moi,which is essentially a no bake dessert made of layers of store bought biscuits soaked in espresso syrup and a quick chocolate buttercream. This recipe is inspired by the Moka Dupont. The reason I say inspired is , because while I wouldn’t dare to think I could improve on the baking goddess’s recipe (the idea itself is funny), here I did change a few things for a few reasons.
The recipe uses biscuits called Le Brun or Petit Buerre. I have used the rectangular butter biscuits (Top By Parle) I could find and they work fine. Use any unsalted biscuits that you think will work. Also, I have used coffee instead of espresso because I didn’t have any espresso! The buttercream is my own because a) the original uses one uncooked egg, and even if I did have organic eggs, i would nt be comfortable keeping it uncooked. But thats just me . b)Dorie says that you are supposed to feel the grains of sugar in the buttercream , but the previous time I tried this , I had almost everyone who had a bite say ” why can you taste the sugar? ” . So, this time I just used icing sugar!
But if you have organic eggs and if you don’t mind grains of sugar in your buttercream ( I don’t think the biscuits and coffee matter as much) , please do try the original which i ve mentioned in the notes! But my adapted version also went down a hit . It easy , its got chocolate and its yummy. Me happy!
How did it taste? Melt-in-your-mouth chocolatey goodness! You will not be able to taste the biscuits at all. Just creamy chocolate with a hint of coffee and a slight flakiness. Kids will love this one!
No bake chocolate biscuit cake
Ingredients
- 24 Biscuits (mine were 4x2 cm)
- 120 ml or 1/2 cup water
- 1 teaspoon coffee
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 60 grams or 1/2 cup icing sugar
- 100 grams or around 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
- 85 grams dark chocolate
Instructions
- Mix 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp coffee in the 1/2 cup boiling water. Keep aside.
- Chop the chocolate into small pieces.
- Melt in the microwave or saucepan. Keep aside to cool.
- Whisk the soft butter using a fork. You can use a beater if you want, but a fork works fine.
- When the butter is creamy (hardly takes a minute) , add sifted icing sugar and mix well. If you want , you can add the sugar in two installments so you ensure a good mixing.
- Mix in the melted chocolate until smooth.
- It ll be a thick glossy frosting
- Lay four strips of butter paper on a plate crisscrossing in a square like in the picture. This is so that they catch any drips. At the end of making the cake, you can slide them out and your plate will be clean.
- Take the coffee in a shallow bowl and dip each biscuit in it , each side for 30 seconds
- Lay the soaked biscuits on the prepared plate. I laid them 2 by 3. So I got four layers of biscuits high. You can do any way you want.
- Spread a thin layer of buttercream on the biscuits .
- Repeat with all the biscuits and alternate with the buttercream.
- Spread the buttercream on the top and sides. You could frost fancily , I as usual kept it rustic with some chocolate shavings. Set in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
Notes
- The original buttercream : Beat 115 grams butter until smooth. Add 1/2 cup granulated sugar and mix. Whisk an egg white until fluffy. Add the fluffy egg white and yolk to the butter-sugar mixture and blend. Add 85gms melted bittersweet chocolate and mix well.
- If you don't want to use chocolate , you can use cocoa powder and add it along with the icing sugar. Mix well though.
- If you want to shift the assembled cake to another plate/ tray, freeze for 15 minutes. You can easily lift it out.
- You can keep this dessert in the fridge for upto a week.
- You can keep this dessert in the fridge for upto a week.