Happy Birthday (to me)
It was my birthday not so long ago. Officially legal in every country now, the big two one. Whoop! Birthdays, in fact every holiday (except christmas), tend to be slightly anti-climatic. Im not crazy about the idea of people being forced to be nice to me on a specific day just cause its my birthday. I also tend to get extremely home-sick.
This year, however, was by far the best birthday I've had since grade 6 and my 'epic' scrapbooking party. My amazing sister and my best friends organised a surprise party for me and my parents flew down from Durban for it. Surrounded by my closest friends and my family I couldn't have asked for a better afternoon, needless to say there were a few (okay, multiple) tears shed. Kloof Street House, thank you for supplying an incredible venue, menu and a kickass waiter.
In celebration of me, I decided a cake was needed and I trust no-one more than myself to make me a cake. A super decadent chocolate cake; complete with marzipan, chocolate buttercream, dark chocolate ganache and a raspberry filling. Uhm... yum? This cake, understandably, didn't last very long and was gone in all of one day. Thank you to my little sister for helping me decorate it!
Dark Chocolate and Rooibos Cake with marzipan and chocolate ganache
(P.s. sorry about the photos, the lighting in the morning wasn't great and we couldn't wait to dig in - whoops)
cake:
- 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- scant 2 cups granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup buttermilk (shaken)
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 extra-large eggs
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 cup rooibos tea (drawn for +/- 5min for good, strong cuppa)
buttercream:
- 250g unsalted butter (at room temp)
- approximately 2 cups icing sugar
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup cocoa (depends on how you like it)
- 1 tbsp buttermilk
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
Dark Chocolate Ganache:
- 200g good dark chocolate (min 60% cocoa solids)
- 3/4 cup cream
Filling and Decorations:
- 3 tbsp raspberry jam (more if you want more layers)
- marzipan
process:
Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius.
Start by making the cake. Combine all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the oil, buttermilk, eggs and almond extract. Slowly add the wet ingredients to to the dry ingredients, mixing to form a homogenous batter. Add the rooibos to the batter and mix until combined. Place in 2, buttered and floured, 8-inch cake tins and into the preheated oven for 35-40mins. Once a cake poker comes out clean, let the cakes cool in the pans for about 30 mins and then turn out onto a wire cooling rack.
While the cakes are cooling make the buttercream. In the bowl of a stand mixer (if you have one - otherwise, like me, just use some arm power) beat all the ingredients together until a light, fluffy and chocolaty buttercream is formed.
You can also start to prepare the marzipan. Roll it out into roughly an 8-inch circle, and cut out any details you want to stick around the edges.
To assemble the cake place the layer of raspberry jam on the base layer of cake followed by the round of marzipan. Smooth a thin layer of the chocolate buttercream on top of that followed by the second layer of cake. Then smooth over a thin, even layer of the buttercream over the entire cake. At this point you can make your ganache.
Chop up the chocolate finely ready to be added to the cream. Heat the cream up until just before boiling in either a pot or the microwave. Once scalding, add the chocolate and leave to sit for a few minutes to let the chocolate melt, then fold until smooth, careful to not incorporate too many bubbles. Once fairly cool but still spreadable, smooth over the cake. (I used my excess ganache to make truffles)
Decorate with your marzipan cutouts or anything else really. YUM!
