The Almighty Chocolate Cake

I am a strong believer of simplicity when it comes to the components of a cake, but as a crazy artist I believe in complexity when it comes to cake design. Two extrems that I cherish as a baker! This recipe is my secret to melt hearts and be sure my guests end up their meal in euphoria. This cake has 3 components: chocolate sponge, sugar sirop and 70% chocolate ganache.

INGREDIENTS

For the chococlate sponge:

4 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup flour

1 Tbsp unprocessed cacao powder

1 tsp baking powder

3 Tbsp melted butter

1 Tbsp water

For the ganache:

3 cups of liquid cream

1 cup of fullfat milk

375gr of 70% dark chococlate

25gr of butter

Sugar Sirop:

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of water

The best is to prepare the ganache in adavance. The night before, put in a pan the cream and milk and heat it up. Be careful, take it out the fire right before it simmers! Add your chopped chocolate and with a small whisk, still out the fire, mix it all till the choclate melt fully. Add the soft butter after. It will get darker and as well thicken. Leave to the side and after an hour, cover it, plastic foil against the top of the ganache. And put it in the fridge.

For the sponge, work your eggs and sugar in a ribbon for 15 to 20 minutes in a standing mixer. In between pass your, cacao powder, baking powder and flour together thinely in a chinois and set aside. Melt a low temperature your butter and add the 1 table spoon of water after. Be sure the mix is not too warm when you ready to add it to the mix.

Fold the dry products with a spatula to the ribbon, carefully do not over mix then add the butter mix. Dig in deep to the bottom with your spatula and bring it to the top and form a circle while doing it so the prodcuts get mixed nicely together.

Use foil to line your tray or oven cake pan. it is the best way to bake a sponge! with foil and not baking paper!

Set the oven at 180 degress, use a 2cm cake pan form you can make two of those, baking them for 20 to 30 mins or use a taller form to bake one single cake, it will take up to 45 mins easily. the last 10 minutes bright up the oven at 200 degrees for a bigger cake.

Let the sponge cool at least 6 hours.

For the sirop bring the sugar and water to the boil for at least 5 mins, you can leave it to boil longer if you want a thicker sirop.

Cut the numbers of layers you desire for your cake, and on each upside, brush the sirop ( apart the top layer of course :) ) The biscuit will be nice and moist!

The ganache out of the fridge should be nice and creamy. It is at thet temperature excellent to build steadily the cake. With a pipping bag begin to level each layers and make sure you have enough ganache on the side of each layers! Once it is done, be sure to level and check that your cake orientation. You do not want a side higher than the other. So take your time and adjust if needed. Then put your cake in the fridge for 2 hours, or 30 mins in the freezer, so the components stick better together.

Let 60% of your ganache out to use on the next step of covering the cake, and the other 40%  in a pan for later.

Once cooled, take out the cake. The room temperature ganache is way softer than the fridge tenmperature one and will help covering the sides and top of the cake. Work with spatula and cover your cake, do not put to much and be carefully for crumbs :) Once its done put it in the fridge or freezer for the same time we did right before.

Making this cake take time but it is by far the best chocolate cake ever!

Now we will give a second ganache cover to the cake, but in that step we have to we sure to have smoother edges and sides. The texture of the soft and harden ganache will help to correct flaws. As above we will chill the cake and heat slowly and at very low fire the last part of the ganache. Take your time to melt it, if you rush it and heat it at a high temperature, your ganache will shift :(

Once your cake is chilled and your ganache at a good 26-28 degree, put your cake on a grill (under a long oven plate) and pour the ganache on top of the cake, be sure it cover nicely the sides and check the grill to have the excess to go down in the oven plate. The cake should be nice and smooth. Put it to the fridge for 1 hour and then decorate it as you wish!

Enjoy!