Five Layer Chocolate and Peanut Butter Ganache Cake

By srumbel

BLUE RIBBON CHOCOLATE CAKE
Winning Recipes
5th Place
Michael Camilli
Oley Valley Community Fair–Berks County

Ingredients

• Cake:
• 5 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 6 eggs
• 6 cups of sugar
• 3 cups of strong coffee
• 1 3/4 cup of cocoa power
• 3 cups of buttermilk
• 6 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 teaspoons of real vanilla extract
• 3 teaspoons salt
• Filling:
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup of smooth peanut butter
• 1/4 cup of whole milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup of butter (softened)
• Chocolate Frosting (Ganache)
• Ingredients:
• 4 cups of bittersweet baking chocolate, 60 percent cocoa
• 2 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted (optional)

Preparation

Step 1

1. Combine all dry ingredients in your mixing bowl
2. Then add all your wet ingredients
3. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes
4. Pour into your baking pans (4–9 inch pans)
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes

Preparation:
1. Cut and level all 5 layers.
2. Then cut out a cardboard circle no larger
than the diameter of your cake. This is needed for pouring the ganache and moving the cake around.
3. Then fill the 4 layers with the peanut butter filling.
4. Place the first layer of the cake on your cardboard circle.
5. Then stack the other filled layers on top of the first layer.
6. Finally stack the 5th layer on the top of the 4th cake making sure that all 5layers are lined up with each other.
7. Place the whole cake on to a wire cooling rack, and then place the cake
with the cooling rack on top of a large bowl. This is needed to catch the excess ganache.
8. Take your warm ganache (80–90 degrees) and pour it all over your entire
cake, making sure to cover the sides.
9 After about 20 minutes carefully move your cake to its final serving dish
(whether it be a plate or a larger cardboard disk). To do this, you will need to get under the smaller cardboard disk with large offset spatulas.
10. When the left over chocolate ganache has cooled enough, you can put it
into a piping bag and decorate as you see fit.

Filling:
Combine all ingredients in your mixing bowl and beat on medium speed for 3–
5 minutes.

Chocolate Frosting (Ganache)
1. Put your chocolate into your mixing bowl.
2. Pour the heavy whipping cream into a medium size pan and heat till just
starts to boil.
3. Add hot cream to the baking chocolate, make sure all the chocolate is
covered and leave it alone for 5–7 minutes.
4. Mix the mixture with a spatula slowly until the cream and chocolate is well combined and smooth and shiny.
5. At this point you would add the melted butter and mix in. This is optional, it helps with the shine.