Chocolate Butter Cake

Chocolate Butter Cake

Glazed with Chocolate Ganache and sprinkled with Hazelnut slices.

One of my many daily activities consists of pinning on Pinterest. I find it fun and inspiring :). So yesterday I was browsing through my boards and notice I've been pinning A LOT of sweets but hadn't actually made enough of them for the blog yet. 

I decided to change that and since I've been bitten by the baking bug this week, I chose to bake a decadent Chocolate Butter Cake and top it with Chocolate Ganache and Hazelnuts. 

You can decorate and fill this yummy cake anyway you like, but it is also very chocolaty and satisfying on its own. 

Chocolate Butter Cake

Preparation time: 1.30 hrs. 

Yield: 6 large servings

Level: Medium

Chocolate Butter Cake

Ingredients

• 140g of Butter
• 230g of Sugar
• 1/2 tsp (2.5g) of Salt
• 100g of Dark chocolate
• 2 Eggs
• 220ml of Milk
• 125g of All purpose flour
• 1 + 1/2 tsp (7g) of Baking powder
• 1/2 tsp (2ml) of Vanilla Extract

Glaze

Ingrendients

• 200g of Dark chocolate
• 200ml of Heavy cream
• 100g of chopped Hazelnut

All ingredients should be at room temperature.

Using a mixer, beat butter, sugar and salt together until the mixture becomes a cream.It should look like this picture on the left. This is going to take a while, so in the meantime chop the dark chocolate and melt it using a double boiler. 

Slowly add the melted chocolate to the butter-sugar cream. When chocolate is well incorporated add one egg, beat until it's been absorbed and ONLY THEN add the second egg. After eggs are added, the batter should look like the picture on the right. 

Dissolve the vanilla extract in the milk and in a separate bowl, sift flour and baking powder together. 

Add the milk and the flour mixture in three batches, intercalating 1/3 of each ingredient at a time. So add 1/3 of the milk, beat until incorporated, then add 1/3 of the flour. Continue until all of the ingredients have been used. Try not to mix too much once the flour has been added.

Pour the batter into a buttered and flour dusted 22.5 x 8 cm (8.85 x 3.14 in) loaf pan (or a round pan with 25 cm - 9.85 in - diameter). Bake at 350 F (175 C) for 45 minutes. 

While the cake is baking, you can start preparing the Ganache. It's pretty simple, bring the cream to a boil then turn off the heat and drop in the 200 grams of chopped chocolate. Mix it once and let it sit for a minute, then mix it again until chocolate and cream become an uniform mixture (the ganache). Note: this recipe is for a softer ganache and is not appropriate for making truffles.

To decorate the cake I recommend you to wait until cake and ganache are at room temperature. Spread the ganache around the cake and scatter it with chopped hazelnuts. 

Tips:
- Remember every once in a while to scrape the bowl you are preparing the batter
- For an extra nutty flavor, substitute the Ganache for Nutella
- You can slightly toast the hazelnuts in a skillet before applying them on the cake.