Devil' food cake with ganache!

Ok, so this is it. The cake that launched a thousand eating orgies. For us, friends and family. I chanced upon this recipe on the internet here: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/devils-food-cake-i/Detail.aspx

The sheer genius/easiness/easy availability of ingredients will get you hooked, believe you me!

What you'll need to make a two layer Devil' Food Cake with Ganache :

Two baking 5" round tins

1/4 cup butter (55 grams i believe)

40 grams unsweetened chopped chocolate

A tad lesser than a cup of white sugar (granulated)

1 egg

1/2 cup water

1 cup and two tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons milk

1/2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar

How you go about it:

Butter your cake tins.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees.

Melt the butter along with the chocolate over a flame. Set it aside to cool.

Cream the sugar and egg until light and fluffy. Boil the half cup of water at this point. Set aside.

Add the butter-chocolate mixture to the sugar-egg mix and temper the mixture by beating well.

Add the boiled water (now warm) to this mix and blend well.

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.

Add the liquid mix to the above mentioned dry ingredients and mix well.

Mix together the milk and vinegar and add this to the above.

P.S: a magic ingredient I add is a teaspoonful of coffee liqueur. I feel it adds greatly to the colour and the taste. This I add at this point.

Pour into the cake tins evenly and pop into the oven and bake till done/ when the tooth pick comes out clean. Roughly about 25 -30 min.

In the meanwhile, let's get the Ganache in order.

Now, the traditional Ganache calls for cream, but being an ardent non-fan of cream, i substitute it with whole milk and butter. i know, what was the point? sigh..

-5 tablespoons unsweetened Cocoa powder (or lesser, it's upto you. The cake is going to be amply chocolatey in itself, but hey, if you can handle, bring it on!)

-1/4 cup sugar (or as per your tastebuds)

-1 1/2 tablespoons butter

-3/4 cup whole milk

-1 teaspoon Rum/Coffee liqueur

Bring the milk to a boil, add the sugar and the butter. Mix the cocoa powder. Beat it in. Incorporate it. The mix will look like an ugly muddy brown mix. Worry not. Let the mixture thicken. Pour in the rum after about 4 min. Keep stirring and on the smallest flame till you get a lustrous, glossy, dark chocolatey, thick spreadable-looking mix. Viola! you have the custom made ganache! Allow it to cool before frosting.

Frosting the cake:

You will be sandwiching the two layers of the cakes, so trim the tops to get rid of any seeming un-evenness or rising that will make the cake look uneven. Heap on a generous dollop in between the layers and smack! fix them down. (Don't worry, the viscocity of the ganache helps here). Pour the remaining frosting onto the top of the cake and working yourself outward and using a spatula, spread the ganache.

There you go! Devil's food cake with ganache frosting! Happy getting high! :)

p.s: You can garnish this with roasted nuts, sprinkles or powdered sugar! It's yours to innovate!