Ultimate Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

200g good quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces
200g unsalted butter, roughly chopped
1 Tbl instant coffee granules
125ml water
85g plain flour
85g self raising flour
1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda
200g light brown/muscovado sugar
200g caster sugar
25g cocoa powder
3 eggs
75ml buttermilk*

Method

Preheat oven to 160°C and grease and line a 22cm springform tin.

In a heavy based saucepan over low heat, place the chocolate and butter. Mix the instant coffee into the water and add to the chocolate. Gently melt together and stir to combine. Remove from heat.

While chocolate is melting, sift in the two flours, bicarb, two sugars and cocoa powder and whisk it to remove lumps. In a separate bowl, gently beat the eggs with the buttermilk.

Pour into the flour bowl, the chocolate mix and the egg mix. Stir together until just combined and pour into cake tin.

Bake for 80 – 90 minutes (1.20 – 1.5 hr) until skewer comes out clean and the centre springs back when lightly touched.

Rest in tin for 5 minutes then remove springform ring cool completely on wire rack.

Ganache

200g good quality dark chocolate
285ml pouring cream
2 Tbl caster sugar

Break the chocolate into pieces in a bowl and set aside. Heat up the cream and sugar in a pot and bring it to just under a boil. Pour the cream into the chocolate pieces and sit aside for a couple of minutes. When chocolate has melted, stir gently to combine into a silky ganache. Refrigerate until it has thickened but still loose enough to pour.

To assemble cake

Divide cake into 3 even layers and use some ganache to sandwich the layers together. Pour the rest of the ganache over the top of the cake and use a palette knife to push it to the edges so it’d spill over and coat the sides. Use the palette knife to smooth ganache all over the cake and leave aside to set. Pour over another layer of ganache to smooth out the cake if it’s still bumpy (you’ll need a double batch of ganache for this). Decorate the top with chocolate curls (recipe to follow) or grated chocolate and dust with cocoa powder.