Home Sweet Home - Mackintosh At The Willow

Mackintosh at the Willow has been working hard to bring you a little taste of the Willow’s mouth-watering recipes into the comfort of your home. We will be updating this page weekly with our delicious recipes for you to attempt to recreate. Please share your attempts with us on our Facebook page and encourage the whole family to get involved! Our talented head pastry chef, Sarah, has put together a series of tantalising recipes for you to get stuck into. It’s week 8 (well, actually 11, we’ve missed a few) and this is a delicious show stopping cake to impress the family! Let’s get baking #homesweethome

Week 8 – Chocolate Cake

What you’ll need to get started:

Ingredients

For the Cake

200g butter
200g caster sugar
160g egg (around 4)
180 self raising flour
25g cocoa powder

For the Ganache

100ml double cream
155g butter
230g dark chocolate (54%)

Equipment List

Biscuit cutter

2 6 inch tins (double recipe for 8 inch tins)

2 Large bowls

Scales (or measuring cups)

Sieve

Spatula or wooden spoon

Medium sides pot

Method:

For the Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 170oc (fan assisted) or 190oc for non fan assisted ovens

2. Melt butter in a pot or in microwave (be careful to only melt not boil) – add sugar to melted butter and mix until a smooth paste is formed

3. Add egg in 4 stages mixing well to incorporate between each stage

5. Sieve self raising flour and cocoa powder into mixture and mix to combine

5. Pour into your 2 pre-lined tins

7. Bake for 35mins approx, or until a skewer comes out clean.

For the Ganache

Place all ingredients in a bowl (glass or metal if melting over a bain-marie or plastic if microwaving)
Melt over a gentle heat or in short bursts in the microwave – stirring continuously to create a smooth glossy mixture
Set your ganache aside and allow to cool to a consistency similar to chocolate spread (you can speed this up in the fridge but make sure it doesn’t set too much, it’ll be too hard to spread)

Assemble

Allow your ganache to set until spreadable
Remove your sponges from the tins and allow to cool to room temperature
Trim the domed tops from your sponges to create flat layers
Sandwich with ganache and decorate the outsides of your cake with the ganache (this helps to keep the sponge moist for longer!

Top Tip: Sprinkle with chocolate shavings!