Cake!

A few weeks ago, my husband, a friend, and I went to a chocolate themed cooking class at Le Cordon Bleu.  We made truffles, a flourless chocolate cake, and learned how to make ganache.

Ganache.  What a wonderful word it is.  Say it with me.... ganache.  C'est merveilleux!

It's such a fun word, the 10 year old has been walking around for the last few days saying "ganache" over and over again.  And then we giggle.  Because it's a word that just makes you smile.  How could you not?  It represents such wonderful things!  Cream, chocolate, vanilla and butter.  That's all it is.

To make ganache, you heat cream to boiling and then pour it over the chocolate in a bowl.  Stir until it's melted and well combined and then add the butter and vanilla.  Cool slightly so you can work with it.  When we made truffles, we used a pastry bag filled with the stuff and piped truffle sized amounts onto parchment paper and chilled, then we rolled the truffles after it had set up some more.

More ganache for the rosettes and a truffle in the middle!

So I made a cake for a birthday; a sour cream chocolate cake.  It's much denser than most bakery cakes and very moist.  Then I made a dark chocolate ganache for the frosting.  For the middle I used 1/2 c. heavy cream, 4 oz dark chocolate chips, half a teaspoon of vanilla and a tablespoon of cold butter.  For the top I used the same except it was 6 oz of the chocolate chips.  After I made the filling-ganache, I chilled the cake until I was ready to make the frosting-ganache.  I set the cake on the rack in my roasting pan and poured away.

It was a really great cake.  I'm sorry I don't have pictures.  By the time I thought about it, the cake was almost gone!  But I'll leave you with a photo of the cake I made at the class, which is prettier.