Long time I resisted traditional chocolate cakes. I had the feeling they were too heavy and always prefered to eat a piece of good chocolate on its own rather than a heavy cake. The truth is that now I don’t understand how could I had lived without it. Yes, we made cakes at home. Every birthday or name day, my mum made a cake for that person, often we kids helped making them. But those were mainly fruit cakes, nut cakes, cheesecakes or the classical sacher. Rarely a chocolate cake!
And here I am, living already for a couple of years with this thing for chocolate cake with ganache. It all started in Colombia, where I wanted to taste freshly brewed coffee at the coffee plantage (read more about it here!) and decided to “soften” the experience with something sweet – which was a homemade chocolate cake they just had that day. It tasted like heaven! And so I felt in love – I felt in love with freshly ground coffee and a piece of a chocolate cake! (What a basic thing, one may think, right?! 🙂 ) When we came back, my nostalgy pushed me to look for a recipe that would bring me back to that experience and so this cake found its place in our home.
This chocolate cake will please most of the guests at each birthday party although you can simply make it on a weekend simply to enjoy it with your loved ones with a cup of coffee or tea. When you make it, use dark chocolate (min. 70%) – I like the one from Callebaut but any good dark chocolate will do. I also like to add freshly brewed coffee in this cake but you can also substitute it with hot water if you make it for children for example.
If you wish, you can decorate the chocolate cake with fresh fruit or make swirls on the ganache. I made this one on the pictures for a Friday afternoon and weekend when my sister was here and as I didn’t want to spend much time in the kitchen, I just added a few last blackberries I still had in the fridge – nothing fancy. But that is the good think if you are lacking time, I think this cake does not need much deocoration in my opinion!
You can prepare the chocolate cake with ganache in advance – bake the cake base a day ahead and then on the day itself, make the ganache, slice the cake horizontally and spread the ganache over it.
Here is the recipe for Chocolate Cake with Ganache and if you make it, let me know how did it turn out – leave me a comment below the text or share a picture on social media. If you don’t plan to make it immediately, save it on Pinterest for later use!
Ingredients
For the cake:
300 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
400 g crystal sugar
250 ml sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 ml coconut oil
75 g cocoa powder
90 g melted chocolate (min. 70%)
180 ml freshly brewed coffee
For the ganache:
450 g dark chocolate (min. 70%)
430 ml heavy cream
30 ml mapple syrup
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and dust with flour the springform (I used one of 19 cm diameter).
In a medium bowl, sift the flour with baking powder, soda and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with sugar, add sour cream, coconut oil and vanilla extract. Combine the cocoa powder with chocolate and freshly brewed coffee and add to the mixture. Eventually, fold in the flour mixture and stir until smooth.
Pour the batter into the prepared springform and bake for about 45-55 minutes in the preheated oven. Once the toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, you can take it from the oven and let cool down.
In the meantime, prepare the ganache: Place the chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat the cream with mapple syrup and once it starts to boil, pour 1/3 over the chopped chocholate, stir well. Repear two times and stir until smooth. Place in the fridge for 2 hours to cool down so that it thickens.
Once the cake cools down completely, you can unmould it. Level it and cut horizontally into 2-3 layers (depending on the diameter of your springform, mine was good after leveling to cut into two layers). Using spatula, spread 1/3 of the ganache on the first layer (if you have 3 layers, spread only 1/4 of the ganache), cover with the other layer and spread another part of the ganache over it evenly, continue with the sides.
