Coated Chocolate Ganache Cake with Apple Raspberry Jelly Filling

If you have a plain/vanilla sponge cake recipe, if you reduced some flour and added some cocoa powder, it becomes chocolate sponge cake! In my previous post, we saw that chocolate ganache was used as a filling. This Monday, we had the challenge of coating it with ganache. To make it glossy, the instructor added 150 grammes of glucose (or corn syrup) to the ganache filling recipe. Ganache is not cheap to make — you will need couvertures chocolates; i.e. melting Chip-Its won’t cut it. You should be able to hear a crispy “SNAP” when you break the chocolate.

You would definitely need a freezer to work with this cake — to set the initial buttercream icing, prior to coating it with chocolate. The cake is placed on a big tray with wire rack to rest — once it’s coated, gently tap it to distribute the chocolate evenly. Then, set it again in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes. I rarely get the chance to work with chocolates because of a paranoia that the dog might lick any of it by accident!

Things that I found worth noting while working with buttercream icing:
– To pipe roses (using the tip that looks like a tear-drop), it would be helpful to stick your icing bag in the fridge for 10 minutes or so. My first rose was nice but my second and third roses were melting like the witch from Hansel and Gretel. In class, we learnt to ice roses without the meticulous need to use parchment paper — just merely scissors and the tip of the flower nail. I hope, with practice, I can pipe my roses on the sharp end of my flower nail instead of the surface of the nail itself.
– To pipe rose buds, it takes two half circles using the same tip to pipe rose.
– Squirt a little out, prior to starting new lines. My biggest peeve was the sudden burst of icing that leaked from the top sides of the decorating tip. But again, this is mostly due to the warmth of our hands. Fat melts fast.

A round cake is cut into three layers; the bottom stays on the bottom, the top becomes the middle and the middle becomes the top. (Have I lost you yet? :P) To make the cake moist, simple syrup is sprayed or poured onto the cake, prior piping a buttercream border and spreading filling.

Oh, and also note to self: do not go too crazy with jam when spreading the filling.  My cake slid so much in its box; these are all the pictures I’ve got of this cake. We learn best from trial and errors, right? 🙂 (Or maybe it was just an excuse not to bring a sensual chocolate cake to work?! Mmm, fine chocolates paired with the right kind of red wine. Time to hit ’em stairs!!)