CHOCOLATE GANACHE CAKE

I've made this cake for one of our friends' going away party. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate pastry cream filling, bananas and covered with chocolate ganache. It was delicious. I also decorated it with some yellow buttercream roses that I made. Here are the recipes:

Chocolate Cake

3 cups flour- sifted
2.5 teaspoons baking powder
3-4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
2/3 cup butter
2 eggs
1.5 teaspoons vanilla sugar
1 1/4 cups milk

Preheat oven to 370 degrees. Grease and flour bottom of two 8-inch round pans. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla sugar and cocoa powder in a large bowl and set aside. Cream sugar and butter together until fluffy. Add eggs to the creamed mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Add milk and mix well. Add flour mixture and beat around one minute. Divide the batter into the prepared pans equally. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool layers in pans for around 10 minutes and remove the cakes from the pans and let them cool completely on wire racks. After they are cooled completely divide each cake carefully into two layers.

Chocolate Pastry Cream

2 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 tablespoon corn starch
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
3 tablespoons butter

Mix all ingredients except the butter in a pan. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat right after it starts boiling. When it is still hot add the butter and mix with a mixer for a few minutes. Let it cool completely before filling the cake.

Chocolate Ganache

10 ounces of semisweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
8 ounces of heavy whipping cream

Place the chopped chocolate into a bowl. Heat the heavy cream and bring just to a boil. (Do not boil). Remove from heat and immediately pour onto the chopped chocolate. Stir until all the chocolate is melted and smooth. Let it cool to the room temperature. Place it in the fridge over night and whip with a mixer right before you cover your cake with it.

Putting Everything Together:

Put the bottom layer of the cake onto the cake board or the cake serving plate. Wet the cake with a few tablespoons of milk. Spread 1/3 of the pastry cream on this layer. Cover the cream with sliced bananas (or any fruit that you like). Cover it with the second layer of the cake and repeat the same procedure. Repeat with the third layer too and put the last layer of the cake on top. Cover the whole cake with ganache and decorate it as you like. I decorated it with buttercream but the lefover ganache can be used to decorate too.