Molly Yeh’s Chocolate Tahini Cake – a dangerously addictive, classic chocolate cake with a hint of sesame & a smooth buttercream you could eat by the spoon. Jump to Recipe
“Camera Clinic has tried to recover your card but it is damaged beyond recovery.”
Ouch. That’s the text that just popped up beside me. My camera SD card stopped working for this first time in its 2 year career when I was back at ground level after that whole Top of the Rock moment a few weeks back. Though I bought a new card for the rest of the trip, I’d optimistically assumed that data recovery was advanced enough to somehow scrape those precious pictures from the unintelligible code. Apparently not. The only evidence is the picture at the top of my last post – thank goodness for needing an iPhone photo for my instagram story.
I’ve managed to slot so seamlessly back into Melbourne life and the routine of study, exercise, university, Orange is the New Black, sleep, hospital, study, bake and repeat that I can hardly believe that I was even in NYC at all. Left is a whole heap of memories, jumbled together in probably the most action-packed week of my life, zillions of photos on my phone, and a bunch of eclectic items I convinced myself were necessary (including hibiscus powder, a bench scraper and momofuku freeze dried corn). It’s the smaller moments that stand out the most: sitting on a bench in Central Park with a flat white and a slice of buttery, layered chocolate babka; watching the bustle in Union Square armed with a punnet of raspberries from the greenmarket; standing atop the William Vale hotel with the other Saveur nominees, staring out at the fiery lights of Manhattan. I know I’ll be back, and sooner rather than later!
In the meantime, it’s 4 weeks until exams hit, and I’m looking forward to summer home in New Zealand and more time to spend on this blog. Exam study is relentless and boring – even if you find something interesting, who actually wants to cram-learn every little aspect of it to prepare for five hours of stressful multi-choice questions and a two hour on the spot practical with multiple unknown stations. However, I know I’d much rather put in the hours of slog now than be disappointed with the results later. So we’ll get through it – with coffee breaks, and group study sessions, and baking to look forward to. Like this cake.
It’s a chocolate tahini cake from Molly Yeh’s new cookbook, Molly on the Range. I don’t know Molly personally, but it almost feels like I do – her blog posts are vibrant and cheerful, utterly likeable and make her seem like the sort of person you’d want as your best friend. I’ve had “tahini/halva cake” on my list to make forever, and even have a container of chocolate-swirled halva sitting in the cupboard, taunting me daily. Seeing this recipe for Molly’s Chocolate Tahini Cake last week tipped me over the edge. I didn’t have much time to bake between learning about spinal cord lesions (exciting, I know) so it was perfect – a sheet cake that didn’t even need a stand mixer, all of the ingredients were already in the pantry, and there was no fiddly frosting or cake-leveling or crumb coats or multiple cake tin requirements. Plus I was really bored of studying and #procrastibaking was definitely the solution. The main issue was that I couldn’t decide which frosting to make – the tahini buttercream from the book, or a chocolate -tahini buttercream I noticed on one of Molly’s previous posts. Doing both was much easier than attempting to make that decision!
It’s now two days later, and we’ve managed to polish off the entire cake. It’s dangerously addictive – a classic, moist chocolate cake with a note of nutty, sweet sesame, and a smooth buttery frosting you could eat by the spoonful. It’s the sort of cake you keep coming back to sneakily slice off one bite, then another, until you realised you’ve probably eaten about three pieces. Yesterday it got us through a study session, and this morning it helped celebrate a friend’s birthday lunch in the sun – with sprinkles, to boot.
In the end, we decided that the tahini frosting was our favourite, and if you like tahini it’ll be yours too – it goes with the chocolate like how miso goes with caramel. However, if you’re a chocolate lover or you’re serving to anyone who might be on the fence, the chocolate-tahini frosting delivers a hit of fudgy, intense chocolate with a side-note of sesame. And if you’re indecisive like me, it’s easy to make both – just set aside half the frosting and add cocoa to the rest (more instructions in the recipe).
As for that halva still sitting in the cupboard? I’m thinking Ottolenghi’s halva ice cream with chocolate sauce, a chocolate-halva babka or halva banana bread.
Or all three. As evidenced here, my decision making skills with food choices are particularly poor.
- 1 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 3/4 cup flour
- 1 cup cocoa
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1/2 cup tahini
- 3/4 cup espresso OR boiling water + 1 tablespoon instant coffee
- 230 g butter (1 cup), softened
- 1/2 cup tahini
- 2 cups icing sugar , sifted
- pinch of salt
- pinch of cinnamon
- 1 teaspoons vanilla
- ± cocoa , sifted: 1/4 cup for half the icing, 1/2 cup for the full icing. If doing the full icing, add the sifted cocoa along with the sifted icing sugar
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Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a deep 20x30cm tin (if yours is very shallow, like mine, increase the height of the sides by using cut strips of cardboard from a cereal box or similar. Line the cardboard strips with baking paper).
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In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.
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In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla, oil, tahini and espresso or boiling water.
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Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.
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Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out with a few moist crumbs.
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Set aside to cool.
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Beat together the butter and tahini until creamy and combined. Gradually add the sifted icing sugar and beat to combine. Add the vanilla, salt and cinnamon.
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If wanting the vanilla tahini icing: taste to adjust flavours. You’re done!
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If wanting to make the half/half icing: remove half the icing at this point and set aside (just estimate). To the remaining icing, add 1/4 cup sifted cocoa and beat to combine.
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If wanting just chocolate-tahini icing: add 1/2 cup sifted cocoa to the full icing at the stage where you beat in the sifted icing sugar, or at the end.
hibiscus powder is definitely necessary! interested to see what you come up with. and this cake!! of molly’s recipes, i’ve only made her matcha cake (only the blog and idk if it’s in her book), but it was so good that I was instantly convinced of her cake expertise (:
hahah I need to work on that – thinking maybe as a glaze on doughnuts or in a buttercream frosting at this stage…watch this space! I can’t wait to try her other cakes too 🙂
Tahini buttercream????? Ok..I am sold. Making this for my landlord’s birthday coming up.
it’s insanely good. for real. and so perfect for birthdays with the sprinkles!!!
I’ve had my fair share of trouble with SD cards. It can be a real nightmare! My baking with tahini is seriously limited mostly because no one else in my family “gets it”. I am thinking maybe this cake would be the best way to ease them into it.
oh you should totally try them on this cake! the tahini give a lovely nutty flavour without being too in your face, especially if you try the chocolate-flavoured tahini buttercream 🙂
These are gorgeous <3 I love the colorful sprinkles. I wish I could just pluck one straight out of my screen!
sprinkles make everything more fun and celebratory! I’ve been inspired by Molly’s sprinkle use to get them out more in my baking x
Sooooo drool worthy. I LOVE her book – her sesame coffee cake has already been made twice here, and my dad is in love with it. She’s such a talent, JUST LIKE YOU!!!! Hope all is well Claudia! <3
Thanks Erica! Oh that sesame coffee cake is right on my list as well – can’t wait to give it a go. you are way way too kind girl!! Hope your week is going well! xx
what a delicious and unexpected combo. i need to get on this. and stunning pictures as always!
thanks Cathy! xx
Bummer about your memory card! I am always slightly nervous that will happen to me…but this cake looks amazing! I have molly’s book and have already made her peanut butter cake. Next I do want to make this tahini cake. Love your version with two frostings!
oh it freaked me out so much! I had just never thought it was something that could happen, but I guess I’d been using it for a few years straight. thanks Madeline!! x
Oh my. . .that is one of my worst nightmares. . .with the other being that my hard drive goes bad before I have a chance to back it up. This happened to one of the students at the photography school I go to. They lost the entire portfolio they needed for their finals and had to re-create the whole thing in less than a week. I guess you could say that this is learning a lesson the hard way.
But this cake. . .it looks absolutely stunning. Loving the inclusion of the tahini as an unexpected surprise.
oh the hard drive is my absolute worst fear! I really need to get all my photos on a second hard drive so I have a backup. definitely a tough lesson to learn for that student.. okay, that is now something that is on my list to get done!
thanks Lynn, the tahini really takes the cake to the next level.
So sorry to hear about you lost photos, it happens to the best of us, but it can be devastating. Hibiscus powder is always needed. Momofuku freeze dried corn? Sure I’ll try it, I love Momofuku . This cake looks divine, wish I could have a piece right now.
Thanks Mary! I tried a hibiscus doughnut in NY that almost tasted like a combination of pomegranate & tart berries – so so good, I can’t wait to use the powder in baking. x
Oh gosh, so many bloggers have been sharing recipes from Molly’s book and I’m pretty much convinced that I MUST have it now or forever regret it. Looks amazing!
you so so should! I can’t wait to try the challah as well. Hope you’re well Meg!! x
Can this be made wth gluten free flour?
Hi Elia, I don’t work with gluten free flour regularly unfortunately so am not really sure how it would affect this cake – it would depend on what type of flour you were using. Sorry I can’t be of more help!
I used your frosting idea on a 9 inch layer cake. Middle filling the vanilla tahini frosting and the outer frosting the chocolate. It was a nice mix! I also added a milk wash for moistness…whole milk with unsweetened cocoa powder and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Oh that is fantastic to hear, thanks Wendy! Sounds lovely.
Hi Claudia,
I really want to try this recipe but I am in England and I’m struggling to convert the measurements accurately into metric. Online conversion tables are really inconsistent. Do you use American cup measures? and are you able to list the ingredients in metric measurements please?
Many thanks!!
Hi Yasmin! I use australian cup measurements – I do now always try to include metric but this post was from a while ago when I wasn’t so meticulous! I haven’t converted them myself, but you could use these:
1 3/4 cups / 350g sugar
1 3/4 cups / 220g flour
1 cup / 100g cocoa powder
1 cup / 250ml whole milk
1/2 cup / 120g tahini
3/4 cup / 180ml boiling water
Hope that helps!