Double Chocolate Layer Cake

For my birthday, I made the incredibly depressing decision to make my own cake. Whatever. As a humongous chocolate lover, after hours of searching, I settled on Sydney's Double Chocolate Layer Cake. I try my best to stay away from over-decoration, but I wanted to make a nice cake to show off how I spend my free time. I thought I'd feel a little weird making "HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY!" out of fondant, so I stuck with a black cat made out of marzipan (I love cats...a little too much) and lavender sugar pearls. But anyway, the cake was delicious, although very rich. And as it was in the week leading up to fashion week, I only ate one piece.
Just a note: As with the Dark Chocolate Meringue Cookies, I would HIGHLY recommend using nicer chocolate. I did not use Valhrona or Callebaut, but Belgian chocolate from NY Cake. Any other high end chocolate will work, though.

Also, the messiness of the cake is due to my own poor construction, I was in a hurry.

Cutting the cake


Ingredients (cake):

• 3 oz. semisweet chocolate
• 1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 3 large eggs
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Ingredients (ganache frosting):

• 1 lb. semisweet chocolate
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tbsp. light corn syrup
• 1/2 unsalted butter (chopped)

Preparation (cake):

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and grease the bottoms and sides of two 10-inch round cake pans. Place parchment paper, wax paper, or foil inside the pans and grease.
2. Chop chocolate and place in a small bowl with coffee. Stir until chocolate melts.
3. Combine all dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) in a medium sized bowl.
4. Beat eggs with hand mixer in a large bowl until lemon colored, then add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate-coffee mixture and beat. 
5. Slowly add dry ingredients and beat until well-mixed.
6. Divide batter between two pans (there is a lot of batter, so make sure you don't fill the pans too high. I made this mistake so my layers were uneven.)
7. Bake 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
8. Let cakes cool, then move to a rack to continue cooling until it's time to ice.

Preparation (frosting):

1. Place cream, sugar, and corn syrup in a saucepan on low heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. 
2. Chop chocolate in saucepan, along with chopped butter and stir until smooth.
3. Cool in a covered bowl in refrigerator, or until spreadable. (I kept mine in the refrigerator for several hours, stirring periodically).
4. When cake is cooled and frosting is spreadable, frost cake as desired and assemble. Decorate as desired.

Note:

The cat on my cake was made with marzipan and black gel paste.