Baking Lesson 2: Vanilla cake with chocolate ganache /VIDEO

Hello Friends!
How nice to end a meal with a juicy cake...! And even the next day enjoy with a cup of hot coffee...For all occasions, this chocolate delice will make you a splendid pastry chef for a night, not to mention that your friends will ask you more and more... and then you come back for more recipes!!! haha!

(I made this cake on the occasion of Valentine's day for my family and since then it is on our top list of favourite easy sweets... How about you?)

Ideal for cold days and weekend opportunities...Even offering it as present to friends.

Let's see on the video below how to prepare and bake the cake. Then we prepare the beautiful delicious ganache and decorate ...


Before you watch this video make sure that you have the following material and quantities to prepare our cake:

Ingredients
For the cake

• 225 gr butter
• 4 large eggs
• 450 gr sugar
• 240 gr buttermilk
• 375 gr red flour (self-rising flour)
• 2 gr vanilla extract
• Chocolate chips (optional)

For the chocolate ganache:

• 200 gr Chocolate 55-57%
• 150 gr Creme fraiche (or creme fleurette)

For decoration (optional proposals)

• perls
• fruits (rapsberries, strawberries, cherries..)
• Sirops with flavors and colours

Preparation time for cake:10'
Cooking time for cake: 45'-60'
Preparation for ganache: 10'
(waiting time up to 2h approx)

You will need your tools below:

or 

(bain marie) 

A few tips mostly said in video but here shortly:

• Make sure that all ingredients to be mixed for cake are in room temperature.
• In some countries (like here in France) it is possibly difficult to find buttermilk (lait de beurre). You may replace the quantity by using 190g of concentrated milk and 50g of fresh cream (ideally thick, if not liquid). Buttermilk is best for our recipe but alternatives exist.
• You can use this cake as a base of flavors. Instead of vanilla extract you could use, coffee extract, hazelnut extract, almond extract, caramel, choc chips of any colour. You can add raisins, almonds and hazelnuts, nuts as well.
• I would recommend this cake as a base of a simple sweet to prepare and decorated as shown. In case you wish to decorate with sugar paste or in case you want to create layers internally it would be preferable to cut layers the next day. 
• This cake, prior decoration, is well preserved in a freezing for at least 3 months. Before you use it keep in room temperature for at least 1 hour.
• Temperatures in the over differ from one oven to the other. It is sure that temperature should not exceed the 180 degrees but you could bake it in 160 degrees as well (Celsius). Temperatures indicated for baking a cake in resistances.
• At home, I generally bake my cakes in silicone dishes. Possibly when you use cake silicones, baking time could be adjusted to 10-15 minutes more than the real time said. They are very flexible and easy to use since they facilicate washing afterwards.
• Chocolate ganache is truly my friend and I use it a lot in various ways. Make always sure that quality of chocolate is good because flavor is definitely super! Simple ganache recipes have chocolate with 57% maximum cocoa so I would recommend you to use chocolate with percentages from 53-57% for a result similar to what you have seen. You can find easily in the super market. In this video I have used belgium chocolate of 57%.
• In case you don't have tools nor spatulas to cover your cake you can try with a big and large knife to cover the ganache. Further to this in commerce (in super markets as well) you will find various products of sugar decorations. You may find your own ideas and decorate as you wish!

Your contribution to my page and your response is always important. Thank you for watching this first video (possibly I have to work on my speech, stressed always the first time! haha). If you liked thank you for sharing with friends. Preparing more videos with techniques and recipes is my pleasure to share with you! 

Love,

Les Delices d' Eleni