Chocolate-Cherry Cake with Chocolate Ganache Icing .....

I wanted to give a surprise to my hubby on his birthday yesterday and spent an entire week thinking about what to do. I finally came up with the idea of baking a CAKE and decorating it myself at home . My mission started two days before his birthday and first I made a list of things I should be buying for him :) of course with his money !!. I spent an entire day shopping clothes and gifts for him and the next day baking the cake and decorating it.

I have baked several types of cakes before but have never done the icing part myself and so I was a bit skeptical on whether I would be able to do it or not. I was though quite keen to do it this time around given the occasion. I browsed several websites and this decoration done by Deeba caught my attention,OMG I just love her creations. I thought I would give this a try as it sounded simple and looked very nice and a perfect decoration for a beginner like me i.e. the room for error was very less :). I baked the cake following the recipe from Nita Mehta's Cakes book and decorated the cake by following our Passionate baker Deeba.

I followed the same method and measurement for the cake as mentioned in Nita Mehta's recipe and the cake came out perfect and moist. As I was doing the icing for the first time I was very careful during the process of making it and the end result was better than what I expected. I should thank Deeba to explain such a simple process of decorating a cake which can be attempted even by a beginner like me.Even though it is not that perfect I was quite happy at my first attempt...hmmm....isn't that cute for a first try ??

When hubby saw the cake he couldnt' believe that I made it at home. It tasted like Black Forest cake but with a different icing on top...


Ingredients:

For the Chocolate Sponge:
4 Large Eggs
1 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Cocoa Powder
1 Cup Powdered Sugar
3/4 Cup Oil
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Vanilla Essence

For the Cream Filling:
200 gms /cream -chilled
1/4 cup Powdered Sugar(approx)
1 tsp vanilla Essence

For the Sugar syrup:
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
4 to 5 drops of lemon(optional)

For Chocolate Ganache:
100 gms Cream(I used Amul)
150 gms Dark cooking chocolate chopped(approx 1 1/2 cups)

For decoration:
100 gms Chocolate
1 Pack of cherries
12-15 Almonds

Method:

Sponge:

1. Grease an 8" round tin.Dust lightly with flour or line a tin with baking parchment and grease paper and sides as well.
2. Sift flour,cocoa and baking powder together.
3. Separate the Egg whites from the yolks.
4. Beat Egg white in a clean dry bowl till fluffy.Add sugar gradually,beating till thick,fluffy and retains shape.
5. Beat in the yolks and essence till thick and fluffy again.Add oil gradually and beat till well.
6. Fold in flour gently with wooden or metal spoon by sprinkling evenly in 2-3 batches.
7. pour mixture into tin and level the top.Tap the tin lightly to get rid of any large air bubbles.Bake in preheated Oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes.
8. Insert Knife or skewer in centre of cake,if it comes out clean,remove tin from oven.After 5 minutes,remove cake from tin on a wire rack and leave to cool.

Cream Filling:

Beat Cream till thick.Add powdered sugar and essence and beat carefully till the cream is very thick and can stand in soft peaks.put some in a cone(made up of butter paper) and keep it in the fridge.Keep the rest of the cream also in the fridge.


Sugar syrup:

Boil water along with sugar until it forms a nice syrupy liquid,strain the water and let it cool.Add lemon juice to it and mix and keep it in fridge.


Chocolate Ganache:

Heat the cream in a heavy bottom pan on low heat till it becomes hot.Do not let it boil.Add chocolate pieces to it and cook until the chocolate melts.Mix nicely to remove any lumps.Remove from fire when almost melted and mix well.Let it cool.


For decoration:

• Grate the chocolate at room temperature by applying some pressure either into curls or big choc shavings and keep them in freezer to harden up.
  
• Chop the cherries finely for the filling and reserve some for the decoration
• Blanch the Almonds in hot water and remove the skin.Cut it into very thin pieces.

Assembling the cake:

• Cut the Cake into two or three pieces depending on the height of your cake.
• Place a cake on the serving platter.Place the butter paper along the sides from the platter so that it can be removed once the process is completely done.
• Soak with 1/4 cup sugar syrup.Spread some cream filling on cake.Arrange some chopped cherries on the cream and cover those with the other piece of cake.Soak cake again with 1/4 cup syrup and repeat the process and place the last slice of the cake.
• Apply the chocolate ganache from the sides of the cake and then pour it on the top,as it has the pouring consistency it will flow smoothly and spread all over the cake.Give a touch up if anything is needed until the cake is completely covered with the ganache.
• Attach the thin Almond slices onto the sides of the cake very carefully.
  
• Take out the bag of whipped cream from the fridge, snip off the corner and make a spiral from the centre outwards.Take a tooth pick and drag it once from the center and once to the center to create a marble effect.You can see the detailed procedure of this process from deeba's blog.
• Arrange the halved cherries on the edges and decorate with chocolate shavings.
• Chill it for 3 to 4 hrs before serving.The cake tastes better on the next day.