Chocolate Cherry Cake with SemiSweet Ganache Icing (Photos)

The wife is out of town - on the beach in LA with her girlfriends and I am home, unchaperoned. There was no one here to say no so I decided to make a cake.

Chocolate Cherry Cake with Semisweet Chocolate Ganache Icing.

You'll need:

- A devil's food cake mix - You may make your own from scratch. I used a mix.
- 3 eggs
- 1/3 cup oil
- 1 can of cherry pie filling.
- Butter and sugar.
- The wife would have used 2 of her layer cake pans. I used a tube pan.
- 325 F Preheated oven.

Semi Sweet Chocolate Ganache icing will be served in Heaven. To make it on earth you'll need:


- 1/2 cup of heavy cream
- 12 oz. bag of semi sweet chocolate



Coat the inside surfaces of the tube pan with butter



dust the pan with sugar



The cake takes 3 eggs and 1/3 cup vegetable oil.



Mix well





Add 2/3 of the cherry pie filling to the cake.



and the cake mix.



It only takes a bout three minutes to mix the batter. The mixer will break apart the cherries, but that is fine. The batter will be very thick.



Into the prepped tube cake pan. As you can see, it is very thick and you'll need to thump the bottom against the counter to level it up



before popping it into the oven



I checked it the first time at 35 minutes with a wooden pick by inserting it into the cake. It did not come out clean,



so I let it go another 5 minutes and it was fine.



Your oven cooking time will vary. Just check and continue the baking until the pick comes out clean. They sell a metal pick at the cooking store for $20.00 if you want to go high tech.

You will let the cake cool on a rack for 10 minutes or so when it comes out of the oven.



While the cake was baking I made the Ganache by adding a half cup of heavy cream to a microwave bowl.



The heavy cream goes into the bowl and the bowl into the microwave at high power. In my microwave, it came to a boil at 2.5 minutes. Stay with it because right after it boils it will boil over and mess up your microwave.



As soon as it boils, remove it and add the chips



DO NOT STIR THEM!

Cover the bowl and set it aside for 15 minutes. If you are like me, not removing the cover for a quick peek will be the hardest thing you ever did, but leave the bowl covered for 15 minutes.



When 15 minutes is up, remove the top and stir the chocolate by hand until it is uniform and smooth. This will take a couple of minutes.



At this point you will accuse me of not knowing what I am doing, because the ganache will be very thin and runny.



Trust me. Set it aside to cool and you will find that when it cools to room temperature, it will be nice and thick and the best chocolate stuff you ever made.

Back to the cake. Here it is out of the pan.



I wanted to have a layer of cherries between the cake layers, so I saved 1/3 of the pie filling



and cut the cake in half



see the cherry bits in the cake?



On goes the cherry pie filling



and spread out as uniformly as appropriate



Then the top layer. I flipped it to give a level top to the finished cake.



I allowed the cake and ganache to cool a little and them crumb coated the cake with a thin layer of ganache.



Then about 30 minutes later, I iced the cake. I'm sure my skills as a cake icer (sp?) could use improvement





With a cup of black coffee = Best thing I have had this weekend.





Of course I have fork views.









If this is not chocolate and cherry enough for you I am at a loss to help.



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