Chocolate Buttermilk Sheet Cake with Ganache Frosting

This is the only chocolate cake I have made so far.  I am not of the adventurous persuasion and tend to stick to the tried and tested. Just like my Mum.  My Dad once quipped "Your Mummy has more than 100 cookbooks but we always eat the same old thing".  Growing up, we never complained about the "same old thing" because these dishes were delicious and till today it is what we look forwards to whenever we go back home.  


Since I have started this blog, I am motivated to try more recipes or else I will run out of things to write.  And yes, I will share my Mum's tried and tested recipes in my future posts.  My Mum is oblivious to this blog but perhaps one day I will tell her.  And I bet she'll tell my Dad "Eh, my same old thing has gone viral".


Now back to the cake.  The original recipe is from Diana's Desserts and I have adapted in terms of the sugar content and pan size.  The original recipe calls for 2 cups of flour to 2 two cups of sugar. Equal amounts of flour and sugar is to me a disaster of diabetic proportions.  And when I baked in a 9 x 13 inch pan, the batter was spread so thin that it became dry and crumbled.  So I baked the cake using a 9 x 9 inch pan and it was a lot better.  I also used ganache as the original frosting contains way too much sugar.  


To make the cake, this is what you need.


Wet ingredients :
1.  1/2 cup unsalted butter (113g)
2.  1 cup water
3.  1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used grapeseed oil)
4.  1/2 cup buttermilk
5.  2 large eggs
6.  1 tsp vanilla extract


Dry ingredients :
1.  1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2.  2 cups self raising flour
3.  1/2 cup sugar (if prefer sweeter use 3/4 cup or more)
4.  1/2 tsp salt
5.  1/2 tsp ground cinnamon


Method :
1.  Preheat oven to 180C (I used 150C because my oven is cranky just like me)

2.  Line a 9" square pan
3.  In a saucepan melt butter and add water and cocoa powder.  
     Turn off the heat and stir to mix well.
4.  Add sugar, salt, cinnamon powder, vegetable oil, buttermilk and vanilla extract.
5. When above mixture is cool, add eggs and stir well
6.  Sift flour into a bowl
7.  Pour the wet ingredients into the flour and use a whisk or    
     spatula to mix until smooth.
8.  Pour batter into pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
9.  Cool the cake in the pan and pour ganache frosting.  When
     ganache is set, remove cake from pan 



Ganache frosting :
1.  100g bittersweet chocolate
2.  100 ml heavy cream
3.  1 tablespoon unsalted butter


Method :
1.  Break chocolate to smaller pieces
2.  Put into a container together with butter
3.  Boil the heavy cream and pour onto the chocolate and
     butter.  Wait for 5 minutes before stirring the mixture

Melting the butter.

Add water, cocoa powder, turn off heat and stir.

Mix wet and dry ingredients until smooth batter forms.

The unholy trinity - chocolate, whipping cream and butter.

Stir ganache after 5 minutes.  Don't panic like I did when you get this thin mixture.  Keep stirring.

Eventually you get this thick, goey, shiny ganache.  Taste it.  It will take you to a happy place.

The end product.  MMMMmmmmmmmm...................

And that's me after one too many.