Everyday Art Work: Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with a Chocolate Ganache Frosting

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with a Chocolate Ganache Frosting

(Original recipe came from: The Baking Pan) I slightly adjusted the recipe and made it easier for me to bake.

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350'. Grease and flour 2 9" round cake pans. Make sure they are the deep pans. I used shallow ones and overflowed them in the oven one of the times.

Step 2: The Batter

I normally like to do this in a stand mixer as it really adds air to the batter and the cake comes out super light and fluffy, but I recently blew mine up making sticky buns and don't have a hand mixer....so Tom came up with a way to mix my batter. I use a beater in the drill. Hey...It works!

In a bowl, Beat the following:

3 c. flour (all-purpose0
2 1/2 c. sugar
4 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 1/2 c. buttermilk (If i don't have butter milk I take 1 1/2 c. skim milk as that's what I drink and add just over 1 Tbs of lemon juice to the milk. Stir it and let it curdle a little and you have buttermilk. I do this in my banana bread all the time too!)
3 large eggs
1 1/2 c freshly brewed coffee. I usually have mine cooled off, but the recipe calls for hot. Mine is also normally hazelnut flavored...Yum!
1 tsp vanilla extract (or in my case...1/2 tsp Double Bourbon Pampered Chef Vanilla Extract)

Step 3: Pour batter evenly into the 2 cake pans and bake at 350' for 30-35 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Let them cool on a cake rack for 5-10 minutes and then remove from pans to cool completely.

Step 4: Make the Ganache!

Ingredients:

12 oz Semi-sweet Chocolate
1 1/2 c. Heavy Whipping Cream

Note: A bag of 12 oz. chocolate chips works wonderfully as they are already chopped. Ashlin doesn't like the bitterness of dark chocolate, so I often add milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet if she is going to be eating it.

The recipe calls for a double boiler and a hassle. I like doing it simply, so I use my Pampered Chef bowl, add the ingredients and melt it in the microwave!!! Simple! You can burn it in the microwave so....Use 30 second intervals and stir each time until the chocolate is melted.

Add the ingredients to the bowl.

Put in the microwave for 30 seconds. Take out and stir.

Not quite melted, so stir and return to the microwave for an additional 30 seconds.

Stir and back to the microwave.

Finally melted. Stir it up well and put in the fridge to start hardening.

Put the melted and stirred chocolate Sauce into the fridge to chill. Keep checking it and stirring until it thickens enough to frost the cake . The longer you chill it and the more you stir it, the thicker it will get.

Chill and stir!

Chill and stir some more!

Step 5: Frost the Cake

A true ganache will be slightly runny when you apply it. I could have waited and frosted it, but I was trying to get out the door with it, so I poured some over the first layer. Spread it a little. Added the second layer of cake and poured and spread it over the entire cake.

Note: My camera battery died, so I switched to my cell phone, and the colors are a little washed out for the next few photos.