Chocolate Ganache Cake: A Reflection

A culinary chef takes on the arduous task of baking a layered cake.

Chocolate ganache cake with a dulce de leche buttercream filled with sliced strawberries

This cake was a two day process, with the dulce de leche and the cake being made the first day and the buttercream and assembly taking part the next. Dulce de leche translates to “sweet/candy milk”. It is a mixture of sugar and milk that is gradually heated up and cooked down to a caramel like color and consistency. You’ll mainly find this ingredient in a variety of South American desserts. It is available for sale in stores, but I made my own and added dark rum to the mix. The rest of the cake is pretty self explanatory. I used a basic chocolate cake recipe and wanted to layer the cake with strawberries to contrast the flavors of the cake. With a small amount of the buttercream, I also added coffee to it. You can better see this as it’s the darker colored ones. I used an espresso shot to make it taste stronger.

Ingredients:

Chocolate Ganache Cake:

• 1 ½C. All Purpose Flour

• 1 ½C. Granulated Sugar

• ¾ C. Dutch-Processed Cocoa Powder Sifted

• 1 ½ t. Baking Soda

• 1t. Baking Powder

• 1t. Salt

• ¼C. Vegetable Oil

• ¾C. Buttermilk

• ¾ C. Hot Water

• 2ea. Eggs

• 2t. Vanilla

Dude De Leche Buttercream:

• 3ea Egg Whites, Large

• 1C Light Brown Sugar lightly packed

• 1 ½C. Unsalted Butter Cubed, room Temp.

• ¼ C. Dulce de leche store bought or homemade.

Dulce de leche: (Yield 2C.)

• 2ea. 14oz Cans sweetened condensed milk

• ½ C. Dark Rum(opt)

• ¼ t. Vanilla

• ⅛ t. Salt

Ganache:

• 2oz Dark Chocolate Finely Chopped

• 1oz Heavy Cream

Strawberries:

• 6-8ea. Strawberries, Washed and sliced

Method:

Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F, Grease three 6” round baking pans. And dust with cocoa powder. Line bottoms with parchment paper

2. Place all dry ingredients into the bowl of a standard mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Stir to combine.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk all wet ingredients (pour water in slowly, as not to cook the eggs if very hot)

4. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix on medium 2-3 minutes. Batter will be very thin.

5. Pour evenly into prepared pans. You can use a kitchen scale to ensure the batter is evenly distributed.

6. Baked until a cake tester comes out mostly clean. A total of 30-35mins.

7. Cool 10 minutes in the pans then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Dulce de Leche

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.

2. Pour condensed milk into a 9in deep dish pie plate and cover with foil.

3. Put the pie plate in a roasting pan and add enough hot water to pan to reach halfway up the side of the pie plate. Bake milk in the middle of the oven until thick and golden, about 1 ½ hrs.

4. Check about halfway through cooking time (45 min) and add more water if necessary to the roasting pan. Carefully remove pie plate from pan and cool completely

5. Add remaining ingredients to milk and whisk until smooth. Sauce may be made 2 days ahead and chilled covered.

Buttercream

1. Place egg whites and dark brown sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk until combined.

2. Place the bowl over a hot water bath on the stove and whisk constantly until the mixture is hot and no longer grainy to the touch (approx 3 min.).

3. Place bowl on your stand mixer and whisk on men-high speed until meringue is stiff and cooled (approx 5 min)

4. Begin adding in cubed butter, 4-5 cubes at a time

5. After all the butter is incorporated, add in dulce de leche.

6. Place chopped chocolate and cream into a microwave safe bowl. Stir to combine. Microwave for 20 seconds, stir.

Ganache

1. Microwave in 10 second intervals , stirring in between, until ganache is smooth and silky. Set aside to cool completely and thicken slightly before using the cake.

2. Chill and place in a piping bag or ziplock bag.

Decoration:

1. Prepare cake stands for decoration. Place a small amount of buttercream on top of the cake stand surface. Place parchment paper on top and another small amount of buttercream. Just so everything is more stable when decorating.

2. Cut the dome part of the cake off making it flat. Reserve cake scraps for either cake balls or just something to snack on!

3. Place a layer of buttercream, then the sliced strawberries. Place one more layer on top of the strawberries. Layer cake on top. Repeat process per layer.

4. Place a layer of buttercream on the exterior. Then chill cake.

5. After the cake is chilled, cut a small hole in the piping bag or ziplock. Pour ganache on top of the cake. It will chill as the ganache goes onto the cake.

My Reflection:

I used the naked cake method. Placing a small amount of buttercream on the sides of the cake so it is exposed, hence the “naked cake”. I poured the ganache on top while rotating the chilled cake, so as it falls onto the cake it will freeze. I reserved some of the dulce de leche that I made and attempted to make a design. I also doubled the buttercream recipe to use on top of the ganache. And the shaved chocolate was made from reserving some of the ganache and freezing it on a sheet tray.

Final Notes:

The flavor of the cake was spot on. The issues came in with the details. For the dulce de leche I’ve never done it before, so It didn’t come out as thick as I desired. However the taste was exactly what I wanted, so I decided not to redo it. For the strawberries, I would’ve liked to slice the strawberries thinner, so the cake laid a little flatter. I discussed how I used the naked cake method for decoration, but my mistake came when I attempted to many designs on the cake. There are a lot of patterns going on at the top of the cake, and I probably should have stuck with one or two, but I got a little carried away. Lastly with the ganache, I needed to have better control the pouring, so that it’s not thick in one particular section. All in all for a first attempt, I was satisfied.