Heavenly Cake Bakers: Double Chocolate Valentine Cake

Double. Chocolate. Valentine. Cake.  No other words needed.

If I had a Valentine, this is what I would have baked for him.  And of course, he would have to share!

This is the second cake that I've baked with the Heavenly Cake Bakers group and I can't begin to tell you how glad I am that I joined this group. First of all, everyone has been so welcoming and have left such kind comments on my blog. I had a rather busy week last week (hence, only one post last week) and I will be catching up with my blog reading and will get back to those in my group who have been so nice and friendly during my first week (again, THANK YOU for your comments). In addition to the wonderful support, I was honored to be the featured baker at the Heavenly Cake Blog and it totally made my week!

When I first went through Rose's Heavenly Cake book, this was one of the MANY recipes I marked that I wanted to try. I'm so glad that I didn't have to wait long, because this is a FANTASTIC chocolate cake! I had a feeling that this cake would be very TEMPTING and since I'm trying to not eat too many desserts (since I'm around them so often with Jillicious Desserts), I decided to cut the recipe in half and use my new small heart-shaped pans for this cake. But let me just state for the record, when I make it again, it will be the regular 9-inch size and I'll have to invite friends over to help eat it, so I can justify making a larger cake--yes, it really was that DELICIOUS.

Double Chocolate Valentine Cake

Prior to making this cake, I read the directions carefully and even watched this video over at Rose's Blog, Real Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum and found this cake very easy to make. This particular cake pan had fairly deep heart shapes and because I did cut the recipe in half, it made four nice sized heart cakes. Because they were smaller cakes, it only took less time, about 28 minutes to bake.

As soon as I pulled them from the oven, I used a bamboo skewer to poke holes in them, to prepare them to soak up the chocolate ganache glaze.

Ganache Glaze

I made the ganache the regular way; stirring the scalded cream into the finely chopped chocolate. Since it was a small batch, I didn't use the food processor (although that technique works very well) mostly because I didn't want to wash any extra dishes. (I made the ganache while the cakes were baking.)

After poking the holes in the cakes, I brushed the ganache over each of the cakes and then following the detailed directions from the book, I inverted them onto a tray with plastic wrap, poked holes in the bottom (which was now the top) and brushed more ganache over the surface and sides of the cakes.

I could already tell that this was going to taste great--just look at all that wonderful chocolate goodness!

After soaking a good amount of ganache on each cake, I refrigerated them for about an hour and then decorated them.

Whipped Cream Topping

In the recipe, Rose suggests to pipe the whipped cream around the base or serve with a dollop of cream on the side. I decided to pipe the whipped cream on the top of the cakes, because I used a darker cocoa in the cake and knew it would need the whipped cream to balance out the richness of the dessert. It was the perfect combination of rich chocolate and sweetened whipped cream.

Decorations

Luckily, I had a few raspberries left over from some dessert orders over the weekend and I didn't have to go searching for them or pay the expensive amount they cost at this time of year. I also garnished the cakes with some Guittard Dark Chocolate curls that I had made.

Jill's Notes

One of things that I find very useful when trying new recipes, is to make notes right in the book. I find that in doing this, the notes won't get lost and if it is awhile before I make it again, I'll know exactly what I did, or changed or what to do differently next time. Also, I write the date I made the recipe and when I make it again, I note that date as well. I usually rate the recipe as excellent, very good, good, fair or poor and this one was definitely rated EXCELLENT. Since I'm not the best at keeping a regular journal, I love looking back to see how often I was baking and remembering the experience--like a little baking journal.

So, if you have this book, turn to page 113 and make this cake today!