Chocolate Ganache Cake

Alright, so today is my husband's dad's birthday, and his favorite dessert is chocolate cake.  This man decided one summer that the chocolate ice cream in stores wasn't good enough, and he needed to make a "killer chocolate" ice cream.  So he spent hours in the kitchen scientifically coming up with the perfect recipe for chocolate ice cream.  This man has a true love for chocolate.  So I was commissioned by my mother in law to get a good chocolate cake recipe.  I asked my friend Cindy for a good recipe (she works in a bakery in California) and this is the beauty she sent me. It definitely did the trick! I hope you like it like we did!

Chocolate Ganache Cake

3/4 c softened butter
3/4 c sugar
4 eggs
1 3/4 c self rising/cake flour (important--I used all purpose; it would have been less dense with cake flour)
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 oz good quality semi-sweet chocolate to melt for decoration (I used Guittard, but mostly you just want something high quality with no oil or anything, just cocoa butter as the only kind of fat)

Ganache

2 c heavy whipping cream
2 1/3 c semi sweet chocolate chips, again, good quality stuff

Making the ganache (You'll want to do this first so it can chill while you bake the cake) : Place cream into sauce pan and bring to a boil, while stirring the whole time. Add in your chocolate and stir until melted. Just gently move your spatula around scraping the bottom of the pan, don’t “stir” like you’re making a mixed drink. Pour into a bowl, cool, then chill for 2hrs or until it is set and firm. (after cooled and firm) Whip until light and fluffy and set aside a 1/3 of the ganache for later use. The rest of the ganache use to fill cake and cover cake. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line an 8inch cake pan (spring form if you have one) with parchment paper. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add in the eggs beating well after each addition. Sift your flour and cocoa together, and then fold in your cake batter very gently. 

Pour into the prepared pan and smooth out the top. Bake in oven for about 40min, or until its springy to the touch. Let cool for 10min and then turn out to finish cooling on a wire rack. After it’s completely cooled slice the cake into two layers.  (mine was kinda molten in the center still, not sure it was supposed to be, but it was good anyway)

Melt the decorating chocolate and spread it over a large sheet of parchment paper. Let cool until shine is gone and it’s just set. Cut this into strips just a little higher then the height of the cake. Place strips on edge of cake over lapping just a little. Pipe the reserved ganache in teardrops to cover the top of the cake decoratively (start in center of cake and make a single tear drop, then go out about a half an inch out and make a ring of teardrops around that single tear drop and so on until you hit the edge of the cake). Let it chill for one hour and then serve. 




NOTE : I am terrible at decorating cakes, so I am sure you could probably make it prettier.  I was mostly going for the chocolate overload flavor.  I was nervous that there wouldnt be enough chocolate with the cake batter not using very much cocoa, but trust me, it's plenty!!