Mmmm... Chocolate!

I'm off to visit Anita this weekend. As you might understand, I'm pretty happy about this fact. And I figured, no one ever complains about chocolate cake. So I thought I'd bake one to bring with me. I also owe Helen a cake as compensation for accidentally insulting her rather badly one time we met recently. I forget what it was that I said, but it was sufficiently bad that, unintentional or not, it could only be made better by chocolate cake. As a result, there's quite a lot riding on this, so it'd better be a good one. So naturally, I went to Rouxbe for the answer.

Chocolate Ganache Cake
Ingredients
For the cake

• 220g Plain flour
• 430g Caster sugar
• 2 1/2tsp Baking powder
• 95g Cocoa powder
• 3 Eggs
• 150ml Light olive oil
• 300ml Milk
• 300ml Strong coffee

For the ganache

• 550g Plain chocolate
• 300ml Double cream
• 210g Butter

Method

1. Sift all of the dry ingredients for the cake into a mixing bowl.
2. Whisk all of the wet ingredients for the cake separately, then pour into the dry ingredients and whisk together.
3. Pour into greased sandwich tins and bake at 180C for 40-45 minutes, testing with a skewer.
4. Turn out onto a rack and allow to cool completely.
5. Scald the cream and pour over the chocolate and butter. Stir until all melted and combined.
6. Spread the ganache over one cake. Stack the second cake on top and cover the top and sides of the double-layer cake.

This amount of mixture actually makes quite a lot of cake I found - about three of my sandwich tins worth. I only have two sandwich tins though, so the third was a lined springform which, predictably enough given how runny the batter was, leaked slightly. But not enough to be a real problem. More of a problem was actually baking it - it seemed to take forever to cook through. It didn't help that I'm still not used to having a fan oven, so the cakes started to burn slightly before they were even remotely done - I turned the heat right down (to ~140C), and they took over an hour of baking before they were cooked through. But I think they're okay!

Anyway, I bet you're expecting photos now. Well, I hate to disappoint, so...
Here are the two sandwich tins after about five minutes in the oven. Looking good so far!
Here it is after my nerve failed me and I didn't dare bake it any longer. I suspect the very centre may still be undercooked, but I really didn't want to burn the top (any more than it had already burned!).
And they came out of the tin! With a little coercion, but they came out!Nearly finished! I've always taken the opinion that it doesn't matter what a cake looks like, as long as it tastes good. While I'm gradually coming around to the idea that this might not be entirely true, it still means that I've never really learned how to decorate a cake well - hence the rather messy cake and even messier surroundings. Oh well.
And the final cake. Once the ganache had mostly set, I was finally able to spread the sides with it.Here's the finished single-layer cake for Helen. Looks pretty good I'd say! As you can see by the glossy surface, this photo was taken before the ganache set.