Chocolate Ganache Cake -- The Good Cake, Made Twice

One week. Liam turns one on Friday and I turn twenty-eight on Tuesday and this is the week of the birthdays and March in Boston has the audacity to snow three inches on Monday as if to assert that it hasn't finished yet. It hasn't finished. But the days are longer and the crocuses are still up and Liam runs across the living room floor now with his arms out and his face lit up and March can do what it wants.

My birthday on Tuesday. Sean made dinner—the chicken piccata I'd taught him years ago, with good pasta—and my mother came over and we had cake (the good chocolate cake, trial run for the birthday party) and Liam sat in the high chair and ate icing off a spoon with the focused ecstasy of someone who has just discovered sugar. His first direct encounter with frosting. His face was immediately covered in it. Sean photographed it from three angles.

Twenty-eight. I think about what I was doing at twenty-seven and twenty-six and it doesn't feel like it was someone else, exactly, but it feels like it was someone with different information. At twenty-six I knew I wanted children but I didn't know what children actually were yet. Now I know, specifically, what a child is: it's Liam, sitting in a high chair with chocolate icing on his face, eating with both hands, looking at everything with the assumption that the world will continue to be interesting. That assumption is correct. I'm working to keep it so.

This is the cake — the one Sean cut on Tuesday, the one my mother approved of with a second slice, the one that introduced Liam to sugar in the most spectacular possible way. I’d done a trial run specifically because I wanted Friday’s party cake to be right, and after Tuesday I knew it was: rich enough to feel like an occasion, with a ganache that stays glossy and sets just firm enough to hold up to a one-year-old’s enthusiastic, two-handed approach.

Chocolate Ganache Cake

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 1 hr (plus cooling) | Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee, cooled
• 1/2 cup neutral oil (canola or vegetable)
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• For the ganache: 12 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tbsp light corn syrup (for gloss)

Instructions

1. Heat oven. Preheat to 350°F. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
2. Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined.
3. Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil, and vanilla.
4. Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk until the batter is smooth and no dry streaks remain. It will be thin — that’s correct.
5. Bake. Divide batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake 32–35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. Do not overbake.
6. Cool completely. Let cakes cool in pans for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Cool completely before ganache — at least 1 hour.
7. Make ganache. Place chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Heat cream in a small saucepan over medium heat until it just begins to simmer. Pour over chocolate and let sit 2 minutes, then stir from the center outward until smooth. Add butter and corn syrup; stir until incorporated and glossy.
8. Cool ganache slightly. Let ganache sit at room temperature 15–20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it thickens to a spreadable but still pourable consistency.
9. Assemble. Place one cake layer on a serving plate. Spread a generous layer of ganache over the top. Set the second layer on top. Pour remaining ganache over the top and use an offset spatula to spread it down the sides, letting it drip naturally.
10. Set and serve. Allow ganache to set at room temperature for 30 minutes before slicing. Store loosely covered at room temperature for up to 2 days, or refrigerate up to 5 days (bring to room temp before serving).

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 520 | Protein: 6g | Fat: 27g | Carbs: 68g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 340mg