Featured Video – Classic Chocolate Ganache

Super decadent and super easy chocolate frosting, checkout the video now. Enjoy!

There is something exciting about chocolate cake. It always brightened up my mood, it always made me happy and it always, with no exception made my meals complete. Chocolates are very addictive, but in a good way (just don’t count the calories). Chocolate Cakes made my meals complete from the very start of the meal. Does that make sense to you? Well, you know my blog tag line “Life is too short, eat dessert first”, it’s not just a tag line. I am actually living it, for real. The proof, I eat dessert for breakfast to start my day and it never fails to keep me going.

I am always surprise when I hear about people who doesn’t like sweet stuff. Sometimes I envy them, you have no idea how much effort it takes for me to resist dessert. I would give up something else but not sweets, what is life without a tiny bit of sweet stuff, ok maybe a little bit more not just tiny.  I stopped trying to resist it, I’ll never win so might as well enjoy it, in moderation.

Chocolate Cake is not only one of my favorite dessert, it is also my favorite cake to make for special occasions like birthdays or anniversary. I remembered when I was starting on baking, cake in general is my worst fear. I was always intimidated with the idea of making it. The first time I tried baking a Black Forrest Cake, it was not as successful as I hoped it would be. It was not a total disaster, it’s tolerable but let’s just say, I had to keep the entire cake to myself. It took me a week to finish all of it, because if you know me, I hate throwing food.  It took awhile before I got over the trauma (of eating the entire cake), then I decided to try again, and again and again. Until I finally conquered my fear, and I felt comfortable making it. I think I may have overdone it, because now I cannot stop making chocolate cakes.

I make them whenever I want to, sometimes in just a spur of a moment. I made quick and easy chocolate cake like this one as well as flourless cake and many more. I guess one big factor is that I found what recipe works for me. There’s really no need to complicate things, that I learned from several kitchen and baking disaster that I had. Sometimes, going for simple recipes are the best way to go. This is why chocolate cake is my go to cake to make to celebrate special occasion. It’s simple, at least this one is. I’ve also learned to make small serving size, a small batch perfectly portioned cake is always my favorite. Portion control, and people end up wanting more, which is great rather than having plenty of leftover.

Kidding aside, once you find what works for you, and start getting into small batch baking, you will appreciate the cake more. You will enjoy every single bite of it and you will look forward to making it again. I’ve used this same cake recipe in countless occasion, and it never failed me. The small size portion is a perfect size for me to execute different decorating ideas without having to use so much ingredients, and frosting most importantly. I personally prefer cake that is not too heavy on frosting, this is why I often use a light coating to cover the cake and to decorate the top.

In this chocolate cake, I wanted to show the use of dark chocolate ganache for piping and crumb coating (covering the cake). Chocolate ganache is my favorite frosting of all time. It’s so versatile I can use it for flooding cake top, for piping decorations and for crumb coating. Unlike butter cream frosting , it’s more chocolate than sugar or butter, and so it’s more decadent and sinfully delicious because it is pure melted chocolate than powdered chocolate.

This Chocolate Ganache uses whipping cream to melt the chocolate. I have a post How to make chocolate ganache without cream, that one works for flooding consistency but not for piping. We need whipped cream to make the frosting thick enough for piping and using regular milk to melt the chocolate will not do the trick. Let me show you how I did it. Let’s get started! 

Ingredients for the Cake:

• • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/3 cup neutral oil (like canola)
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/3 cup full-fat sour cream or plain Greek Yogurt
  • 1 large egg – room temperature
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp coffee powder – optional

Frosting Options:

Dark Chocolate Ganache:

• 600g / 21oz Dark chocolate
• 300ml/g / 10.5oz whipping cream (35% milk fat) or any whipping cream available in your area. Do NOT use regular milk or non-dairy milk

Milk Chocolate Ganache:

• 650g / 23oz Milk Chocolate
• 300ml/g / 10.5oz whipping cream (35% milk fat) or any whipping cream available in your area. Do NOT use regular milk or non-dairy milk

White Chocolate Ganache:

• 700g / 25oz White Chocolate
• 300ml/g / 10.5oz whipping cream (35% milk fat) or any whipping cream available in your area. Do NOT use regular milk or non-dairy milk

These Ganache are big batch, if you are making small cake like mine (6-inch), divide ingredients into half. It is important to follow the measurement depending on the type of chocolate you are using. The easiest to work on is the dark chocolate. This is the one I used for this cake.

Cake Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F, and position a rack in the lower third of the oven.
2. Prepare the Pan: Line a 6″ round cake pan with parchment paper on the bottom, and lightly grease the sides with oil. I
3. Dry Ingredients: Next, in a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
4. Wet Ingredients: In a small bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, sour cream or greek yogurt, egg, vanilla and coffee (if using any).
5. Wet Ingredients + Dry Ingredients: Add dry ingredients mixing just until combined.
6. Pour the batter into the cake pan, and bake.
   • for 6-inch round pan: 29-32 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. If you under-bake the cake, it will slightly sink, so check it! It will also start to pull away from the sides when it’s done.
7. Cool: Set aside to cool completely. Remove the cake from the pan and remove the parchment paper. Cake that has been refrigerate is easier to decorate with frosting. It is recommended to store it in the refrigerator and decorate the following day, although you can also decorate it the same day as long as it is completely cooled off.
8. Make the Chocolate Ganache: See instructions below
9. Decorate: Cover the entire cake with Chocolate Ganache and decorate as desired. I used Wilton tip 1M to decorate the top. If you are going to buy decorating tip, I suggest you get 1M, this is all you need to create beautiful and elegant decorations on your cake.

Ganache Instructions:

Microwave Method:  In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the heavy cream and chocolate and microwave on high in 1-minute intervals, stirring for 2 minutes in between, until there are no lumps. This should take 2 to 3 minutes maximum.

Stove top Method: In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a rolling boil (this just means a boil with bubbles all over the surface, not just around the outside edges). Remove from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until there are no lumps.

• Cover your ganache with plastic wrap and make sure the wrap touches the surface of the chocolate to avoid forming skin on top.
• Wait until the ganache reaches room temperature (about 30 minutes), then beat on high speed with an electric mixer until the ganache lightens in color and becomes thick, spoonable and pipable.

Serves 6

Recipes Adapted From: