Snowfall Cake II

victoria sponge covered in dark chocolate ganache and finished off with my white chocolate shavings for snow.

I wanted the snow effect to be subtle, kind of like the first snow of the season, just a little helping. This was the best sponge i have ever made, so light and the first time making chocolate ganache.

I took more photos i need to look through to see if there are better later

Recipe
Sponge
150g self raising flour (or gluten free self raising flour)
150g softened butter
150g castor or granulated sugar
3 large eggs
6tbsp milk or cream
1 tsp baking powder (or gluten free baking powder)

Ganache
200g dark or milk chocolate, chips or broken into pieces
200g double/heavy cream

The ganache recipe was featured in a recent journal of mine [link] and is the first of them i have made [link]

As the ganache need to be left to thicken for this cake so i don't want it running all off the cake i made that first.

1. Place the chocolate and cream into a pan, height on a medium heat until smooth and silky. Put to one side to cool and thicken.

2. Line two round 8 inch baking tins with baking paper and pre-heat oven to 180oC

3. The sponge, there are too ways of making this.
3a. The quick way. In a mixing bowl or using a food processor add all the sponge ingredients and mix until smooth and lump free
3b. My way. Cream together the butter and sugar, mix in the eggs, sieve in the flour and baking powder, mix until smooth. Finally add the milk and mix until silky. I prefer this way as i feel the sponge comes out lighter.
4. Evenly distribute between the two tins and bake for 20 minutes or until a skew comes out clean (a good time to clean up)
5. Leave to cool on a cooling rack (a god time for a tea break)
6. After giving the ganache a quick stir, spread it generously between the cake layers, sides and top.
7. To finish you can sprinkle over some chocolate shavings, chocolate chips, chocolates, cocoa powder roses [link] or even some fudge [link] whatever you fancy.

If you want the sponge chocolate flavoured, just add some cocoa powder to the mix. You could even add bottled flavourings or orange rind.
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If you want to use butter cream instead of chocolate ganache here is the basic recipe i always use

150g/5oz butter, softened
300g/10oz icing(confectioners) sugar
1-2 tbsp milk
few drops food colouring or flavouring if desired

Slowly sieve in the icing sugar (add any colours, flavourings or a couple tbsp of cocoa powder if you want it chocolate) and beat until creamy and smooth, adding the milk to loosen if required. Use straight away as it will soon harden and be unable to spread

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