Milk or milky oolong has been one of my obsessions ever since I got some from a cute tea shop in Munich. I’m partially ashamed to admit that I never heard of the tea prior to that trip, especially since it is a Taiwanese tea, and I am Taiwan-born after all, but better late than never, I suppose? What makes milky oolong tea so obsession-worthy is both its fragrance and flavor. It smells strongly of sweetened condensed milk, and tastes like milk tea! I have been pairing milk tea with chocolate cakes over the years, and I honestly feel like this is probably my best iteration of that! The milky oolong adds these almost caramel-like notes to the chocolate, so doing a rich, black cacao cake with a silky, feather whipped milky oolong ganache just made so much sense. Aesthetically, this cake kind of looked like an Oreo, since I used a white chocolate ganache as the base for my filling, but that was because I wanted to use white chocolate to play off of those milk notes of the tea even more. The entire cake literally has chocolate in every component besides a cake soak, while the parts with the tea just really perfume the cake and gives it a really pleasant nuttiness and fragrance that makes for an addictive combination.

We essentially have two main components in this recipe, being the cake and the ganache, while also having two garnishes, one of which is a soak, and the other being chocolate bits to add some much-needed texture. The cake itself is a rich black cacao cake. It is almost brownie-like in consistency but minus the crispy edges – I strongly believe that cakes are not to be crispy in texture. You can have crunchy-textured cakes like a crumb cake, but never crispy, otherwise your cake is overbaked. The cake uses black cacao and regular cocoa powder to give it a rich chocolate flavor, while ovaltine and cold brew are there to really enhance that chocolate taste. The cake is soaked with a milky oolong milk tea give impart that flavor throughout the cake as well. The ganache is honestly the more technical part – white chocolate ganache is a pain to make because it needs a decent amount of fat to stabilize it into a whip-able, spreadable consistency. Heavy cream and butter are both used to help make this happen – even when I was recipe testing for this, I found myself having to add even more cream than initially expected just to get the ganache to stabilize. And even then, you run the risk of over whipping the whole thing and the ganache splitting. So it is a very temperamental balancing act to get it right. But the end result is this cloud-like ganache that just melts on your tongue. And when you do that with the pleasant milky oolong flavor, it is absolutely delicious. The cake is also layered with crunchy chocolate balls and chopped chocolate so that it is not just soft on soft textures. All in all, this cake is a chocolate and milk tea dream, and one that I highly recommend for any chocolate cake-lovers out there.

For the black cacao cake:
100g canola oil
220g granulated sugar
5g vanilla extract
1g salt
200g all-purpose flour
10g black cacao powder
10g cocoa powder
2g baking soda
2g baking powder
8g ovaltine powder
100g cold brew
6g black vinegar

In a bowl, whisk together the canola oil, sugar, vanilla, flour, cacao and cocoa powders, baking soda, and baking powder first until a clumpy, crumbly dough forms. In another bowl, whisk together the other ingredients. Pour the two mixtures together and whisk until combined. Line 2 6-inch ring molds with foil and cooking spray. Divide the batter evenly between the two molds. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes, or until a fork can be removed without any bits of raw batter. Allow the cake rounds to cool before attempting to unmold.

For the whipped milky oolong-white chocolate ganache:
6g milky oolong tea leaves
175g whole milk
265g white chocolate
1g salt
113g unsalted butter
100g heavy cream, in two parts

In a pot, heat up the tea leaves and whole milk on medium heat until the liquid reduces by 3/4’s. Strain out the oolong and return the liquid to the pot. Add to that the white chocolate, salt, butter, and one part of the cream, and cook on low until everything is melted together. Pour the mixture into a mixing bowl, and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Then whip into the mixture the heavy cream to form a smooth, spreadable white chocolate ganache.

Should your ganache split, try whisking in warm water, 10g at a time, until it becomes smooth and homogenous again.

For the milky oolong soak:
1g milky oolong tea leaves
50g whole milk
1g salt

In a pot, heat up the ingredients on low heat, covered, for 5 minutes. Allow the leaves to cool in the milk for 10 minutes before straining them out. Then allow the milk to cool completely.

For assembly:
20g crunchy dark chocolate balls
20g dark chocolate, chopped coarsely

Start with one round of the cake first, and drizzle on 25g of the soak onto the first cake round. Then spread half of the ganache on top of that cake layer. Sprinkle 10g each of the crunchy chocolate balls and the dark chocolate pieces on top of the ganache. Place the next round of cake on top. Repeat the other steps.