Lorraine's

Chocky, Vicky, triple decker sponge cake with chocolate ganache, raspberries and whipped cream!

"I dreamt this up the other day when it was requested that I make a new kind of cake. This is an edible behemoth, great for birthdays and other special occasions. The chocolateyness of the sponge and the ganache is balanced off so nicely with the slightly tart raspberries and the wonderfully sweet, but a little bit sour whipped cream. Anyway, I waffle… enjoy. LPx"

Sponge
350g butter (softened)
350g caster sugar
8 eggs medium size
Few drops of vanilla extract
250g self raising flour
100g cocoa powder

Sugar syrup
100ml water
100ml caster sugar

Chocolate ganache
300ml double cream
200g dark chocolate at least 72% cocoa solids
100g milk chocolate

Raspberries
2x 150g punnets of raspberries

Cream filling
200ml double cream
20g icing sugar

3x 8inch sandwich tins (preferably loose bottom)

Turn the oven on to 180c with the middle shelf ready.

Line the bottom of the pans with backing parchment.

Put the butter, sugar in a bowl and beat until the mixture begins to go a bit lighter and is well combined. Add the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition. If you find that the mixture looks a little bit iffy and has curdled, then just add a tablespoon from the 350g of flour, beat it well and it will come good again.

Once all the eggs are added, add the vanilla extract stir to combine and then add the flour and the cocoa powder. Mix this all together until the batter is a smooth consistency and then divide it between the three pans. Level the cake mix out with a knife a bit and then place the pans in the oven for 25-30mins.

Whilst this is all cooking, I have a good clean down and then get on with the rest of the cake.

Put the 100ml of water and the 100g of sugar in a small pan over a low heat, stirring from time to time until the sugar has all dissolved. Then whack up the heat and let it bubble away for 1 minute and set aside.

Once the cakes are cooked, remove them from the oven. I test to see if they are cooked by inserting a small knife or a skewer right in to the middle of one of the cakes. It should come out completely clean. Once they are cooked, using a pastry brush, brush the sponges with the sugar syrup. This will make the sponges lovely and moist, then leave them to cool completely in the tin.

As they are cooling put the double cream in another small pan and heat through gently until it just begins to steam, then remove it from the heat and snap the chocolate in to small pieces and leave the chocolate to melt.

Give the raspberries a wash and then set them aside.

Put the 200ml of double cream in a bowl with the icing sugar and a few drops of vanilla extract and then whisk the cream until it just begins to stop flowing around in the bowl and starts to hold itself. Set this aside also.

Have a look at the pan with the cream and chocolate in, the chocolate should have melted now. Give the mixture a good stir until it resembles smooth silky chocolate ganache. Take blob of this and put it on the centre of the cake board/plate. Then remove one of the cakes from the tin and place it down on top of this blob, now spread this with a generous helping of the chocolate ganache. Put raspberries neatly all the way around the cake, the chocolate ganache will act like an edible glue so that the rasbperries stay put. Now put about 1/3 of the cream in the middle of the cake. Then through a handful of raspberries on top of the cream and squish them down a bit.

Then take one of the sponges and carefully place it on top. Don’t squidge it down too much. Repeat the same thing again, ganache spread over the sponge raspberries all around the edge,then cream in the middle again and a handful of raspberries. Place the last sponge on top, spread with the chocolate ganache and then put raspberries all the way around the edge. You can put cream on top here, but I like to keep the cream to just the middle layers.

Fonte: lorrainepascale