Chocolate Ganache Cake
Description
The last meal of the week (Friday) turned into leftovers because of a last minute first soccer practice – so cute! I’m sure I’ll have plenty of stories to share from that, especially since ‘yours truly’ is now the official coach of a passel of 4-year-olds. Anyway, Thursday ended up being Sassy Pork Tenderloin with a salad and the last loaf of Chuck’s No-Knead Bread from the freezer.
Saturday, Brock and I had a few of our friends over for a sushi night and I had fun making a couple of desserts during the week. This one is adapted from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Parties! – and the first adaptation for next time will be to use a 9-inch round pan (the 8-inch that it called for ran over). Very tasty though – and worth the mess in the end. I would say it’s more of a rich chocolate dessert than an actual cake and I made it the day before, wrapped it well and put it in the fridge and glazed it on the day I served it.
Ingredients
Chocolate Ganache Cake
Cake – can be made, wrapped well in plastic and refrigerated up to a week in advance
1/4 lb./4 oz./113.5 g butter, softened (I had to weigh it – it’s about a 1/2 cup)
1 c. sugar
4 extra-large eggs
16 oz. Hershey’s chocolate syrup from a can (I weighed this too because I could only find 284 mL cans – I needed slightly more than 1 can)
1 T. vanilla
1 c. flour
Ganache – glaze the cake the day you serve it
1/2 c. cream
8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 t. instant coffee
something for a decoration – I used 1 fresh flower
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 325 and grease a 9-inch round cake pan, line the bottom with parchment then grease the paper as well.
Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of your electric mixer until light and fluffy, then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well in between each addition. Next, mix in the chocolate syrup and vanilla and lastly the flour, mixing only until it’s just combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes – the middle should be barely set when you give the pan a wiggle – and then allow the cake to cool completely in the pan before turning it out and wrapping it well (or getting it ready to glaze).
For the glaze, I put the 3 ingredients into a microwave safe bowl and warmed them up for 1 minute increments on low power – you really only have to melt the chocolate chips. Once everything is warm, giving it a good stir will bring it all together and it will be smooth and perfect looking. Next, place 4 separate pieces of parchment around the serving plate, so that when you place the cake on, almost the entire middle of it will be resting on the plate itself but all of the edges will have (removable) pieces of parchment underneath them.
Pour/spoon on the glaze and use a spatula to carefully cover all of the edges, then carefully (and with patience) pull out each small sheet of parchment. Decorate the cake if you’d like, but do not refrigerate!
- Category: Cakes
Coach?? Have you had them running lines yet? Did you get your first whistle? FANTASTIC? x