Friday, May 25, 2012

Birthday Banana Cake

For my partners birthday he requested “my” banana cake and since all of my recipes are on my old dead laptop I had to find a new one! Now I am all for change except when in comes to “my” banana cake. After hours of research I decided to go with this one: 
2 large ripe bananas

1/3 cup (80 ml) sour cream, room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

2 cups (230 grams) cake flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

10 tablespoons (140 grams) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature



To mix things up a bit I decided to make a three layer banana cake covered in chocolate ganache! I've never made ganache so I followed this video, How to make chocolate ganache for decorating cakes Inspired by Michelle Cake Designs, word for word and it came out perfactly yummy and was super easy to make. I used Cadbury milk chocolate but any chocolate will be fine. 

I made one and a half times the recipe and divided it into three lots, each baked in 23cm square pan.


 
This is where it started going a little wrong. To get perfectly straight sides you have to trim the edges but I decided to trim one cake at a time instead of all three at once. This resulted in a slightly wobbly finish.

 
In the video she lets the ganache cool to room temperature, refrigerates it over night and then brings it back to room temperature to use. Since I was pressed for time I let it cool to room temperature and warmed it a little so it was easier to spread. I spread the ganache in between the layers and then finally over the cake and used a spatular to even it out. 

 
As I said the cake was a bit wobbly on the sides and unlike icing ganache doesn’t hide the flaws in the cake so the sides looked a little uneven. I suggest putting the cake on a wire cooling rack and then pouring the ganache over the top and letting it run. This way you don’t get a pool of ganache like I did and the ganache spreads a lot more evenly.  


 


Ta da! The finished product, not bad for a first attempt, the hole on top is from the musical candle.  


  

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Triple chocolate!!

So this is my first batch in my new kitchen! I did the bigger half in the maker and the smaller half with frosting.


And because one layer of chocolate over chocolate pops isn’t enough, I added white chocolate!


Pretty bouquet!
And all packed..