Episode 78 – Chocolate Raspberry Ganache Cake

Episode 78
November 27, 2011
Chocolate Raspberry Ganache Cake

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and holiday weekend!  Let’s hit the ground running for December by starting with a huge episode the last week in November!  This episode features 4 new recipes!  On top of that this is a very special episode because Josie Eller from the food blog AllInTheNameOfNoms.wordpress.com stops by to show us her fondant technique for covering cakes!  I’m very excited to be sharing this with all of you.

This recipe is straight out of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible and is the cake on the cover.  She actually calls it La Porceline but I felt that it wasn’t descriptive enough of what to expect inside the cake.  Granted, any of the components used in this cake can be used for different recipes (for example: you could use the devil’s food chocolate cake [links to german chocolate cake episode] with the raspberry ganache icing and it would still be a chocolate raspberry ganache cake) but for the sake of getting Google hits and YouTube tags we’ll call it the chocolate raspberry ganache cake.

I'll be adding chocolate roses on the decorating page soon!

One of the first recipes made in the video is a recipe for modeling chocolate.  Modeling chocolate is similar to marzipan, fondant, and gum paste in that it’s used for making flowers and other edible cake decorations.  Modeling chocolate is very easy to make, but did you know you can also use tootsie rolls as modeling chocolate?  The recipe in the Cake Bible makes a stiffer modeling chocolate that dries brittle.  It can be a little weird to work with at first but once you knead it slightly it becomes very pliable again.  The recipe also comes with several variations including a milk/dark coating chocolate variation, white coating chocolate variation, and a dark tempered chocolate variation.  Pay attention to the ingredients in your chocolate to figure out which variation you’ll need.  For example: Michael’s candy melts may not contain cocoa so use the white coating chocolate variation when using them.

In addition to chocolate roses, the cake is also decorated with chocolate rose leaves.

Chocolate leaves are easy to make! Be sure to use pesticide free leaves!

Leaves are really easy to make.  First, find some edible or food safe leaves you’d like to use for your cake.  Make sure they are not exposed to any pesticides because even a good rinsing or soaking will not get rid of all that poison.  Next, take tempered chocolate or coating chocolate and paint a pretty thick coat onto the back of the leaf (the back has better veining) being careful not to get any chocolate on the front of the leaf.  You want a pretty thick coat so the leaf is strong and doesn’t have thin spots where you can see through it.  You may even want to paint 2 coats of chocolate.  Afterward, pop the leaves in the fridge or freezer to get the chocolate nice and hard then just peel back the leaf.  If the leaf sticks use a soft paintbrush to help coax the leaf off.  You should be able to use one leaf several times before it becomes unusable.

The All American Chocolate Butter cake makes up the bulk of the dessert.  It is a rich chocolate cake that is extremely tender and very moist.  If you’re looking for a fudgey tender cake then use this recipe.  The Devil’s Food Chocolate cake recipe is more fluffy though still pretty moist.  The Devil’s Food Chocolate cake holds up a little better to being handled than the All American Chocolate Cake.  Keep in mind that this cake’s tenderness makes in vulnerable to breaking and sticking.  This may be one of the few cakes I would recommend using an entire parchment paper circle for the cake pan – but even then a thin layer of cake sticks to the parchment paper.  The good news is you definitely don’t need to use simple syrup on this cake.

The Raspberry Ganache icing can be a little time consuming to make.  It is actually two recipes put together.  The raspberry part comes from a Raspberry Reduction sauce which is made by taking fresh or frozen raspberries and pureeing them, adding sugar, then reducing the liquid in a pot.  The Cake Bible’s recipe actually has you squeeze out about 1 cup of juice prior to pureeing.  The juice is then reduced while the pulp is pureed.  The seeds are strained from the pulp and the pulp is added to the reduced sauce to create a more textured fresher tasting sauce.  The author says the taste is in part because the pulp is never cooked.  In addition she also uses a microwave to reduce the sauce to 1/4 cup so as not to “cook” the juice at all.  This takes a very long time to do but rest assured that the sauce can be frozen for up to a year.  If you’re like me and hate having to do all kinds of extra steps just follow the recipe I provide here and you’ll have a raspberry reduction sauce in no time.  Afterward some of the sauce is then added to a dark and white chocolate ganache.

Initially I was drawn to this cake because I thought it would make a very nice show stopping center piece to your Christmas dinner especially if you pair it with edible holly and berry decorations.  After making it I realize that this recipe is probably better suited for Valentine’s Day.  Either way, the cake’s flavor, texture, and moistness will blow your mind and probably rivals some of the most elegant cakes in Europe.  Even if you don’t cover the cake in fondant the cake will still taste amazing.

As I said earlier in the post, my friend Josie guest stars in this episode.  Josie is a biology major from James Madison University and is a foodie at heart.  She has been spending a great deal of time and energy to pursue a cake decorating career and is now an accomplished Wilton Cake decorating often requested by her past students.  She also works in a bakery in Alexandria, Virginia as one of the specialty cake decorators.  At the time of the episode I wasn’t taking any Wilton Cake classes but I decided to take her classes from day 1 and see what most of the populace can learn from the class.  This gives me a better idea of what many of you are experienced in and seeing somebody else teach a cake class helps me be more aware of how to make better demonstrations.

In the episode, Josie covers the cake with Satin Ice’s chocolate fondant.  This chocolate

Roll the chocolate fondant band out on plastic wrap or parchment paper. If you need to, use the parchment paper to help get the band around the cake.

fondant is very sticky and wet and I recommend working in a decent amount of cocoa powder to help make it a little easier to work with.  Be aware that the cocoa powder will change the color of the fondant so if you’re looking for the very dark chocolate color you won’t want to add too much cocoa powder.  To make the wavy parts of the cake Josie actually takes a second piece of fondant and rolls it out to a long strip (measures to the circumference of the cake in width, and is between a half inch to an inch taller than the cake).  Then she takes the band and carefully adheres it to the side of the cake using a little vodka as glue.  To help keep the flaps on the top of the cake from falling over she takes a little ball of chocolate fondant and tucks it under the flap out of sight.

Now I know the pictures are a little radioactive – I clearly need to take some photography classes – but I think it has to do with the fact that the cake was so shiny.  To make the cake shiny and get rid of some of the cocoa powder we brushed on a very thin amount of vodka.  Eventually the vodka will evaporate leaving a nice clean matte finish but it will actually stay wet and shiny for at least an hour or two at room temperature.  That being said, because of the perishable nature of the Raspberry Ganache you’ll want to store the cake refrigerated.

Okay I think that covers all the components of the cake!  I want to extend a very special thank you to Josie for coming over and helping me do my very first episode with a guest star.  Please make her feel welcome so she’ll come back and show us more tips and tricks!

Here’s the recipe for the Chocolate Raspberry Ganache cake which includes the All American Butter cake recipe and the directions on how to assemble the cake.  Here are the recipes for the Rasberry Ganache, Raspberry Reduction Sauce, and Stiff Modeling Chocolate.  Click the individual names to download the individual recipes.  Below is the video!  Thank you for watching!!