Guest recipe: Hollowlegs' Chocolate Ganache Cake

A little while ago I asked food blogger Lizzie Mabbot, better known online as Hollow Legs, if she'd write a recipe just for Domestic Sluttery. My jaw hit the floor when I saw this cake. Go make it, and then read the whole of her blog with chocolate cake all around your mouth.

Chocolate Ganache Cake

While I'm quite happy round the kitchen experimenting with new recipes, anything to do with chocolate, baking or cookie-making I find terribly daunting. I haven't the natural flair for it. I can spot glaring errors in many savoury recipes, but the alchemy of chocolate? Not so.

However, I also can't bear waste. I tried to make some chocolate rose truffles but alas; I wasn't told to substitute some cream with the rose water, rather than just slinging it in, so it didn't set quite as I'd hoped. For truffles you should be able to scoop the chocolate into a ball and roll into a ball but instead I ended up with some very chocolatey hands indeed.

But no matter! Because out of the ash rises a phoenix, and that's where I learnt to make this lovely cake. Despite appearances, it's quite a grown up cake. The high cocoa content, the slight bitterness of the coffee and just a hint of the perfume coming through from the rose water make it so, but the white Maltesers are pure silliness. We can't be serious all the time.

For the Ganache:

• 225gr 80% chocolate (I used Lindt)
• 175ml double cream
• 75ml rose water (optional - you can substitute this with liquer)

Melt 225gr 80% (I used Lindt) chocolate in a bain marie (a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water). Ensure no water gets inside the bowl. When it has melted, stir in the double cream. When it is all well mixed, take off the heat and add the rose water or liquer.

For the Cake:

• 3 eggs
• 175g self-raising flour
• 175g caster sugar
• 175g butter, softened
• 1 1/2 tsp
• 3tbsp cocoa powder
• 1tbsp instant coffee
• 4 tbsp boiling water

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 / 180 degrees. Butter a 20cm springform cake tin and line with greaseproof paper. Cream the eggs and sugar together, then add the flour and the butter and beat together until smooth. Unless you have an food processor or an electric whisk, this will hurt your arms a little. Still, it's worth it!

Mix the boiling water with the cocoa powder and the coffee, ensuring it's all dissolved. Add to the cake batter and stir to incorporate. Finally, add the baking powder and stir once more. Add the mixture to the cake tin - tap lightly on the work surface so that it levels out before you place it in the oven.

Bake for 40 minutes. Test with a skewer - if it comes out clean then it's ready, if not give it another 5 or 10 minutes.

Remove to cool in the tin. When cooled, turn out onto a place. Slap the ganache in a leisurely fashion over the cake with a palette knife or spoon, and decorate with white Maltesers. Place in the fridge for the ganache to set.

If the ganache isn't liquid enough to spread easily over the cake, set it on the bain marie again to melt a little.

I really wanted to get hold of rose petals that I could crystalise in a sugar syrup to decorate the cake with, but alas I couldn't find any that hadn't been treated with pesticides. If you can find any, then this would make a pretty addition.