Chocolate layer cake with chocolate ganache

I must admit I was nervous about the addition of coffee into the cake. Love them both individually, but not combined. I did some research and found that apparently the coffee deepens the chocolate flavour, resulting in a delicious chocolate flavour with no coffee taste. I was skeptical. Mr X added to my anxiety when he tasted the raw cake batter. "Hmmm... is there coffee in the cake? That's all I can taste!". Uh-oh. But popped the cake in the oven anyway. Mr X tasted the cake once baked and changed his mind about the coffee taste. I got the thumbs up. Phew!

The oil is used instead of butter leaving the cake lovely and moist - it also stays fresh longer without going dry.

Ingredients:
Cake
3 cups plain flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbsp + 1 tsp baking soda
Pinch salt
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (sifted)
1 1/3 cups rice bran oil
1 1/2 cups buttermilk - well shaken
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups freshly brewed hot coffee (I used two shots of long black from our coffee machine topped up to 1 1/2 cups with warm water)
1 1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste

Ganache (enough to fill cake between the layers and to ice the cake) 
250 grams dark chocolate
100 grams of milk chocolate
3/4 cups thickened cream

Method:
Preheat the oven to 176 degrees C degrees. Grease and line two 20cm round cake pans with baking paper.

Place flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Add oil and buttermilk. Add the eggs one at a time, beating the mixture continuously on low with an electric beater. Slowly pour hot coffee down the side of the bowl and into the mixture, continuing to mix on low speed. Add vanilla and mix until batter is smooth. Divide into pans. Pop in oven and bake until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs, about 30-35 minutes. Rotate half way through baking. Mine took 35 minutes to bake. Let cool in pans for at least 20 minutes.

While cakes are baking, pop the cream in a microwave on medium head for one minute, being careful not to burn it. Add chocolate to cream and mix, allowing the chocolate to melt. Continue to stir until fully incorporated. It looks so smooth and shiny - you will not be able to risk tasting it! Delicious!  Set aside to cool and thicken at room temperature, stirring occasionally.

Once baked and cooled, carefully remove cakes from pans. Place one layer of cake on a serving plate. If the cakes are a little uneven onto, carefully trim the tops with a serrated knife. Place some of ganache in the middle of the cake and smooth it out towards the edges using a spatula. Repeat the process with the second cake, before placing the untrimmed side down on the top of the first cake, forming two layers. Press down gently.

Spoon more ganache on the top and smooth it around the sides, adding more ganache as needed to cover the entire cake. Leave it to set for a few minutes (if pressed for time, put it in the fridge for 10 minutes) then smooth on another layer.

Another nice option would be to put caramel in between the layers before covering with ganache.

Lemon bars for Mum

Happy birthday Mum...

Mums birthday was on September 2nd.She loves lemon tart, but unfortunately I don't have a tart baking pan. I wasn't quite game enough to make a lemon tart without the pan, as I really didn't want to fail miserably. It was Mum's birthday after all!

These lemon bars were baked in a square cake pan and essentially tastes the same as a lemon tart. This recipe calls for a lot of lemon juice - the result is a nice, strong lemon flavour. The base is nice and thick and isn't made soggy by the filling.


Lemon bars (Recipe from Baking Bites)


Ingredients:
Base
1 1/2 cups plain flour
Pinch of salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature


Filling
4 eggs
1 1/3 cup sugar
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained

Method:
Preheat the oven to 176 degrees C. Grease and line a 20 x 20 cm cake pan. I find it easy to use baking paper with a bit of overhang (have the baking paper extend up a few cm over the cake pan to make it easy to remove the bar without breaking after baking).
For the base, place the flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the butter and use an electric beater on low to mix until it resembles sandy crumbs. I found it easier to rub the butter a little into the flour with my fingers to achieve this after using the beater for a few minutes, but maybe that was me being a little impatient!
Tip the mixture into the prepared pan. Using your fingers press the mixture evenly into the base of the pan, extending to the edges and corners.
Pop in the oven and bake for 16-20 minutes, until golden brown at the edges. Watch closely after 15 minutes, but mine took closer to 20.
While the base is baking, whisk together the filling ingredients until incorporated. You want to pour the mixture onto the base while still warn from the oven, so have it ready!
Take the base from oven and pour filling in carefully before popping back in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the filling is set and doesn't wobble. 
Note - I used a silicon cake pan so I made sure I had it on an oven tray before pouring the filling in - otherwise it would have been very hard to get into the oven!

While the bars taste good on the day of eating, if you leave them overnight (or even a few days) in the fridge, the lemon flavour develops and the bars get better.