Today was my brother’s 26th birthday! About a week ago, I asked what kind of cake he would like he said “chocolate. Keep it simple”.
I have done this chocolate cake recipe dozens of times. It’s my absolute favorite because it has whipped egg whites so it’s so airy and soft. It’s perfection. Use this cake recipe and pair it with any type of frosting you can think of!
Most of my cake frostings consist of butter cream and sometimes butter is just so heavy, that I thought I would take a break from the butter! Say it isn’t so!!
So today I decided to make a whipped chocolate ganache frosting! Oh my goodness, I gave my family a curve ball with this one. They kept coming up to me saying “what’s this frosting?? It’s so good!”
It was a nice change of pace! It’s very simple and only consists of two ingredients! Cream and chocolate!!
In the instructions below I go into detail on how to treat the cream to get the perfect “whipped” chocolate consistency.
And since this was a birthday cake all, how could I not top the whole thing off with colorful sprinkles!? Sprinkles just make me happy and they are so cute!
Ingredients:
For the cake - 2 cups of flour - 1 tsp baking soda - 1/4 tsp salt - 8 ounces baking chocolate - 1/2 cup water - 1 cup unsalted butter - 2 cups sugar - 4 eggs separated - 2 tsp vanilla - 1 cup buttermilk For the frosting - 1 1/2 cup whipping cream - 16 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips
Instructions:
Whipped chocolate ganache frosting should be made several hours ahead. At least 4 hours.
Microwave cream in a heat proof bowl and add chocolate chips into the cream. Mix with a whisk until all the chocolate melts down and there are no lumps.
Allow to cool at room temp before sticking into the refrigerator. Let sit in fridge for about 4 hours or longer.
After it has chilled take the bowl and mix with a mixer until stiff peaks are formed. About 5-7 minutes. The mixture should be fluffy and resemble whipped cream in texture. Place the whipped cream back into the fridge until you are ready to frost the cake.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter three 9 inch baking pans and line the bottom with parchment paper ( also butter the top of parchment paper)
* When I’m baking with circle pans I lay the pan on top of the parchment paper over the counter and trace around the bottom of the pan with a pen, the cut the parchment with scissors so that the parchment paper fits perfectly in each pan.
In a microwaveable bowl, melt the baking chocolate with 1/2 cup of water for about a minute and half. Take a small whisk or a fork and stir the chocolate down into the water until smooth, then set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt, set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Add in the 4 egg yolks one by one, mixing together slowly to incorporate. Keep the egg whites in a small bowl set to the side. Add in the vanilla and then the melted chocolate.
Alternate between adding the flour mixture and the buttermilk into the chocolate. Mixing well to make sure everything is well combined and you no longer see streaks of chocolate.
Mix the egg whites together in the small to medium sized bowl until they form stiff peaks. Slowly incorporate the egg whites into the batter with a spatula, folding them in and not mixing them in.
Pour the batter evenly into the three prepared baking pans and bake in the oven 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Remove from oven and allow to cool on cooling racks for 20 minutes. Immediately after coming out of the oven, take a knife and slide it around the cake pan to remove the sides of the cake from the pan.
Evenly frost between the three Layers of cake and all over the outside. Top the cake with sprinkles. This cake can sit in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.
