Chocolate Cake With Chocolate Ganache.

Here you’ll find a moist chocolate cake with a delicious chocolate ganache, perfect for chocolate cravings and to celebrate any special occasion.

How to make this chocolate cake with chocolate ganache?

Possible adaptations of this recipe.

Ingredients and substitutions.

This cake recipe requires different ingredients, some of which could be substituted according to your needs :

• Room Temperature Unsalted Butter: You could try and swap it with a non-dairy alternative, but I haven’t tried it myself.
• Granulated Sugar: while you could reduce it, I don’t recommend it as it would impact the texture of the cake.
• Eggs: If you don’t eat eggs, you can try to swap them with an egg replacer.
• Vegetable Oil: you can actually use any flavorless oil of your choice, such as grapeseed or avocado oil.
• Buttermilk: I personally often swap buttermilk for a DIY buttermilk alternative (using milk and vinegar/lemon juice), and I swear nobody can tell the difference.
• White Vinegar: While you might be tempted to leave it out of your cake, don’t. It really allows the cake to have a tender crumb and you can’t taste it. You can replace it with any kind of vinegar you have on hand.
• Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder: you could also use Dutch-processed cocoa powder.
• Cake Flour: If you don’t have any cake flour on hand, you could try swapping it with an easy cake flour substitute. Keep in mind the texture of your cake will be a little bit different.
• Baking Powder & Baking Soda: these two act as leavening agents.
• Dark Chocolate: 50% is a minimum for this recipe.
• Heavy Cream: you could also use double cream.

Size adaptation of your chocolate cake.

I tend to write my recipes for 3 layers of 6-inch cake tins, which also happen to be perfect for 2 layers of 7-inch cake pans. You can easily adapt this recipe to bigger cake tins though. Simply multiply the grams measurements by:

• 1.75 to get 3 layers of 8-inch cake pans or 2 layers of 9-inch cake pans.
• 2.20 to get 3 layers of 9-inch cake pans or 2 layers of 10-inch cake pans.
• 2.70 to get 3 layers of 10-inch cake pans or 2 layers of 11-inch cake pans.

If you end up having to divide an egg, mix the white and the yolk of the egg, then, add the desired measurements to your cake batter.

Bake The Chocolate Cake.

1. Preheat your oven to 330°F (165°C) and prepare 3 6-inch cake tins or 2 7-inch cake tins.
2. Microwave your milk in increments of thirty seconds just until steamy. It took me 1’30 minutes.
3. Add the cocoa powder to the milk while simultaneously mixing with a whisk (or a fork). Once homogenous, set it aside.
4. In your mixing bowl, combine your flour, sugar, baking soda, and baking powder.
5. Add your room-temperature butter to it. Mix with your hand mixer (or stand mixer with the paddle attachment) until it resembles wet sand. It should take you up to 2 minutes.
6. Add one egg at a time with your hand mixer (or stand mixer).
7. Next, add the cocoa milk, the oil, the white vinegar, and the vanilla essence to your cake batter. Mix it all at medium to high speed for three minutes.
8. Pour your cake batter into your cake tins.
9. Bake it at 330F° (165C°) until a toothpick comes out clean (around 35 minutes).

Make The Chocolate Ganache.

1. Place the chocolate, the heavy cream, the butter, and the sugar in a saucepan or a small pot over medium-low heat.
2. Let them melt and mix until you get a homogenous mixture.
3. Strain the frosting into a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap directly touching the mixture, to prevent skin from forming while it cools.
4. Let the frosting cool in the fridge for approximately 1H30 or until it reaches the desired texture.

Assemble Your Chocolate Cake With Chocolate Ganache.

1. Make sure your cake layers are completely cooled and leveled before assembling your cake.
2. Then, alternate each cake layer with a layer of chocolate ganache.
3. Finally, cover and decorate your cake.

Baker’s secrets.

In order to make sure you end up with the best results, here are three baker’s secrets (that are not so secret really):

• I cannot stress enough how using a kitchen scale is a game-changer when baking. I know the cup system is very practical, but once you try weighing your ingredients, you’ll regret not having started sooner both in terms of texture and taste.
• Temperature is also another game changer. Always use room temperature ingredients unless stated otherwise and preheat your oven, you’ll taste the difference.
• Finally, do not overmix your cake batter, once you’ve added the eggs. Honestly, nine times out of ten, when someone has a problem with a cake recipe, it’s because they overmixed their cake batter.

Can you make your chocolate cake ahead?

You can easily make this chocolate cake with chocolate frosting ahead. Spreading the process of a layer cake makes it way more manageable, especially for beginners. You have several options:

• You can freeze the cake layers for up to 6 weeks. Only make sure they’re tightly wrapped in plastic wrap.
• You could also make the frosting ahead and keep it in an air-tight container for up to 2 weeks.

Whatever option you choose, let the cake layers, the frosting, or the entire cake come back to room temperature before serving.