TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CAKE

The godfather of all cakes, it doesn't get any better than a 3-layered multiple chocolate cake. This is one of those recipes that it is worth slaving away in the kitchen for hours for. Are you ready? Take a deep breath.

Triple Chocolate Cake- serves 12. (Or 1 depending on how you look at it...)

Ingredients:
450g self-raising flour
300g light brown sugar or 350g caster sugar- light brown sugar is sweeter, creamier, and richer
9 eggs- separated
450g butter- softened
150g white chocolate
150g milk chocolate
450g dark chocolate
300ml double cream

Steps:
-Firstly, preheat the oven to 180degrees celsius.
-Next, cream together your sugar and softened butter. You could take a shortcut and melt the butter, but then the cake tastes more oily.
-Add the yolks and flour to the butter-sugar mixture. For a lighter cake, sieve the flour.
-Whisk the whites of the egg until soft peaks are formed, and beat into the mixture. It is not necessary to be gentle, because you're not making a meringue, so you don't want all of the air.
-Leave the cake mixture aside, and in three separate bowls melt the white chocolate, the milk chocolate, and 150g of the dark chocolate.
-It is preferable to melt the chocolate in a bain-marie, because the chocolate is extremely unlikely to burn. Remember that if you use a microwave to melt the chocolate, put it on in 10 second blasts. Also, white chocolate takes shorter to melt, and shorter to burn as it contains much more cocoa butter.
-Put a third of the mixture into each of the bowls of melted chocolate and mix. You don't have to makle sure they're the same colour throughout as it can be quite nice if is has a marble effect.
-Into 3 greased 23cm tins, put the chocolate cake mixtures. The cake mixtures should cook in the oven for 20 minutes, and they should then be skewered to see how much longer they need.
-When a few crumbs come out on the skewer, the cake is ready to be taken out.
-Put some sheet on top of a plate, ready to assemble the cakes.
-Boil the cream on the hob, and when it has boiled, pour over the remaining dark chocolate.
-Continuously mix until all the chocolate has melted and the mixture is one colour throughout.
-If you want, add 25g unsalted butter to the chocolate-cream mixture- this makes the ganache glossy.
-Pour some of the ganache generously over the bottom base. I tend to put dark on the bottom, milk in the middle, and white on the top. Make sure that all the sides are covered in ganache and you cannot see any sponge. Repeat this stage with the middle base and then the top base. You will most likely not use up all of the ganache- you can have leftover ganache with chocolate for a tasty treat.
-Chill the cake in the fridge until the chocolate has set. The coldness of the fridge should not affect the texture of the cake if it has been fully covered with ganache.
-Devour!


Alterations:
Add coffee to the mixture, or orange zest to the mixture and orange liqueur to the ganache.

Tips:
Whenever you make a ganche, remember to always use equal quantities of chocolate and cream.
Never use milk chocolate for a ganache, because there is not enough cocoa in it. The chocolate ganache would turn out being extrememly creamy with no taste of chocolate.




Remember, copyright of Chloé Koura.