From Matilda · 1996 · Reconstructed
Bruce Bogtrotter's Chocolate Cake
Serve when
Serve the whole cake with one fork and total defiance — and when the last bite lands, let the room chant BRUCE! BRUCE! BRUCE!
In the movie
Theatrical
- 00:42:27 The assembly-hall showdown: Miss Trunchbull forces Bruce to eat an entire towering fudge cake in front of the school — cook's 'blood and sweat' in every slice — and Bruce, gloriously, finishes it.
The Trunchbull's punishment becomes the film's most triumphant scene: one boy, one enormous cake, and a school finding its courage over chocolate. It made a generation simultaneously terrified of and desperate for fudge cake.
Ingredients
- For the fudge frosting:
Method
- Whisk the dry ingredients; beat in eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla; stream in the hot coffee last (thin batter = moist cake).
- Bake in two 9-inch pans at 350°F, 30–35 minutes, until a toothpick from the center comes out with only moist crumbs. Cool completely.
- Beat the frosting ingredients until dark, glossy, and indulgent — this cake's reputation is 90% frosting.
- Stack and coat generously, swooping with the back of a spoon.
- Serve by the slice — or, under duress, whole. You can do it, Brucey.