Double chocolate layer cake filled and frosted with chocolate ganache

(Super long whiny post alert...proceed at your own risk, and please I'm sooo over the hate-comments-by anonymous-lurkers' stage, so spare them)
Is everyone over and done with the whole Valentines day drama? After an overdose of mushy stuff on FB, posts on blogs and movies on telly, I for one am done with it. You can also say its sour grapes because my husband didn't even wish me on V day. The fact that we are not really in talking terms worked for both of us because he doesn't believe in birthdays, V days and anniversaries and I believe in them too much that I am annoyed if I'm not made to feel special on all these days. But strangely enough he remembers the day we met, the day we got engaged etc. etc. which I think is cute, but who cares about dates...show some love instead (or a Tiffany's ring would make me a happy (but shallow) woman)

Today is my birthday and it went on like just another day in my boring life. The husband wished me for the heck of it and even bought me something, not because he wanted to but because I'd eat his head about it for the rest of his life, if he didn't show any gesture like that. I blame my parents and friends (and maybe my ex-boyfriends) for this. My mom threw me beautiful birthday parties when I was small and in my teenage years it was treats at restaurants and slumber parties at home. In college it was nights out with the friends and parties at clubs and gifts and flowers. And then, I got married- to someone who thinks all this is overrated-  and it abruptly stopped. Forget V day and anniversaries, (its just another damn day to prove you are stuck with the same guy..oh how I envy you single women), but birthdays are very special to me and I somehow expect something from the ONE person who fills my world. And because that one person doesn't care about the day enough, I end up brooding over my life so far and how I miss home and friends so so so much. I have cried on every birthday of mine for the past 6 years and I don't see that changing. So yesterday, I went and watched a romantic drama that made me cry from beginning to end (DON'T watch The Vow, its a waste of money), and today, I watched a horror movie (like being alone in the house wasn't enough) and made through the 95 minutes with my eyes closed, trying hard to not snap at the frikkin giggling girls sitting behind me. I then came back home, curled up on my sofa and did some more brooding (and fantasised about having a whirlwind of an affair with Mc steamy).

So since I'm not gonna be getting any cake today, I decided to post a chocolate cake recipe here. It's a cake I baked for Ro (yes I still go out of my way to make his birthday fun..call me nuts) a week back , when I'd invited some friends over. As you already know, I hate chocolate and anything to do with it. Chocolate cake tops the list of things I don't like and the fact that I've had a couple of disastrous results doesn't make it any better. Since Ro doesn't care what the end result of anything with chocolate is, I started off making this cake thinking its just going to be average. Boy was I wrong. I must admit that I've never wanted to taste a cake this much in my life. The moment it came out of the oven, I knew I'd like it. Unfortunately, I had to wait for one more day to cut it and taste it which was just too much to handle. But living with a husband who spends an hour (minimum) in the bathroom kinda takes your patience level a notch higher, so pat on the back for me. 

Its a super simple cake to put together and you can make a magnificent 2-layer (9 inch) cake with the said amount. If I'd tried to do the baking and filling and frosting all on the same day, I probably would have gone mad, which is why I decided to bake the cakes a day earlier and fill and frost the next day. It all worked out perfect and I was super proud of my organising skills :). I was a bit apprehensive as to how it would be when sliced into and held my breath when Ro cut into it, but everyone liked it and I didn't mind a piece myself. Ro, however, doused it with some whiskey and said it tasted even better. I don't like whiskey too much, but a bit of brandy would have probably been good. Just warning you, its not one of those super sweet cakes :)

Recipe for the cake adapted from here

Plain flour- 1 3/4 cups

Granulated sugar- 2 cups

Unsweetened cocoa powder- 3/4 cups (I used Dutch processed Green & Blacks)

Baking powder- 1 tsp

Baking soda- 2 tsp

Salt- 1 tsp (kosher, table or sea salt)

Buttermilk- 1 cup

Flavourless vegetable oil- 1/2 cup

Eggs- 2, large

Vanilla extract- 1 tsp

Freshly brewed espresso coffee- 1 cup

For the ganache 

Plain chocolate- 200 gms + enough for grating

Double cream- 200 ml

Caster sugar- 2 tbsp (optional)

Whisk together the first 6 ingredients in a large mixing bowl. You can either do this using your wire whisk or if you have a free standing mixer, use the paddle attachment and on low speed combine all the dry ingredients together.

In another bowl mix together the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla extract till they all come together.

Add this to the dry ingredients and beat on low till well incorporated. 

With the beater still on low, slowly feed in the coffee and then bring up the speed to medium and beat until fully incorporated

Butter and line 2 9" pans and pour the batter into each. The best way to get more or less even size cakes are to weigh the batter in each tin. I usually do this, but this time I measured approx. 3 cups of batter for each  tin and got cakes of the same size.

Place the tins in the centre rack of an oven preheated at 176C and bake for 35 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean.

Take them out of the oven and leave aside to cool for about 15-20 minutes, after which you can turn it onto a wire rack and wait for it to cool completely.

While that's taken care of, make the ganache.
Chop the chocolate as finely as possible and place in a  heat proof bowl.
Bring the double cream to a boil in a sauce pan, over medium heat.
Take it off the flame and immediately pour over the chocolate.
Let it stand for a couple of minutes after which you can gently start stirring using a whisk or wooden spoon (without incorporating any air into the ganache) till you get a smooth glossy chocolate mix.
Add the caster sugar and gently stir until melted. Keep aside for 15 to 20 minutes for it to slightly harden. Not too much though.

Assembling
OK so you can basically use the ganache in three different ways- Fill the cake with whichever icing you prefer, put on the other layer, place the cake on a cooling rack and just pour the ganache on top, enabling it to drop off the sides as evenly as possible. Messy, but good shiny, glazed topping would be the end result.
Second would be to whip it up like how you do a normal whipped cream frosting. Bring the ganache to room temperature and whip on high for 2 minutes or so. This could work for cupcakes.
Third, would be to let the ganache harden a wee bit and then use it like how you would do for a butter cream icing, for more thicker frosting and piping designs...which is what I did.
Place the cake on a stand/plate in which you are going to serve.
Generously douse a layer of ganache on top, evening it out with a palette knife, as much as possible.
Place the second cake on top and do a crumb coating by doing up the entire cake in a thin layer of ganache. Try and smooth it out as much as possible. If you ask me, this is the hardest part of frosting a cake.
Keep aside to set for a while and then do the final coating...go ballistic with the remaining ganache and coat the entire cake..again, try and smoothen it out as much as possible.
Decorate with chocolate balls, wafers, chocolate shavings or just grate some chocolate on top and place it in the fridge.
Two hours before serving, bring it back to room temperature and slice using a knife dipped in hot water so you get a neat slice.
Enjoy with some vanilla ice cream or on its own.

Notes: Please use the best possible cocoa available. Dutch processed would be ideal.
One cake had a dome, so I had to slice a bit of the top using a serrated knife.
As I mentioned before, I'd baked the cakes the previous night and once they had cooled down completely, I wrapped them in cling film and stored in the oven at room temperature. They didn't dry out and was as moist as it should be.
Plain chocolate is different from dark chocolate and milk chocolate. Dark choc. would make this more bitter, but if you prefer that, go ahead with the option.
The espresso coffee can be replaced with instant fresh coffee. I put 2 tbsp of instant espresso powder into a cup of boiling water and used that.
I didn't bake both the cakes together because I only have one pan. I also have ready made cake liners (like massive cupcake liners) which I use religiously. So once cake 1 was done, I waited for 5 minutes, and moved it on to a cooling rack (with the cake liner). Placed cake liner 2 into the same cake pan, filled with batter and baked for the exact same time. Took it out and cooled as usual. This is probably not the best way to go about baking 2 cakes, but they both turned out gorgeous.


Linking this to the chocolatelove bloghop event over at Junia's