Chocolate Ganache Cake!

This week it was my friend’s birthday and so as a flat we got her a cake which I made. This friend had been hinting for a while that she wanted a chocolate cake with strawberries. Her hints were not subtle so I really needed to follow up on them. For the cake I used my chocolate cake recipe. Check out the chocolate cupcake post for all the details. This is my go to chocolate cake not only because it is moist and chocolatey and tastes good but also because it’s quite a cheap cake to make. The recipe calls for vegetable oil which is a lot cheaper than butter! I made two sandwich layers (8”) which I then proceeded to level and cut in half. This left me 4 layers. To sandwich each layer together I decided to use ganache. Ganache is a combination of chocolate and double cream which can be used as a glaze, filling or icing. I used Mary Berry’s recipe which was 150g chocolate chips (I used dark) and 150ml of double cream. To make ganache simply heat the cream until it starts to bubble but is not boiling. Then pour the cream over the chocolate, let it stand still for a couple of minutes and then mix it all up until it’s smooth and glossy. This quantity of ganache was enough to fill the cake. I decided not to ice the sides of the cake and left them naked. I was going for the homemade, rustic feel and also I was feeling a wee bit lazy! When I was sandwiching the layers together I put some chopped strawberries in between each layer. If you are going to recreate this cake I would recommend chopping the strawberries quite small. I left mine quite big which meant all the layers collapsed when I tried to cut out a slice. The slices were not very attractive looking but they did taste nice thankfully! To decorate the top of the cake I put sliced strawberries around the circumference of the cake, with one full strawberry in the middle. This cake is great to make if you don’t have a lot of time on your hands and it doesn’t require any special or weird equipment either! Would recommend serving the cake with some whipped cream or ice cream as it is quite rich and chocolatey!