After a long and foolish hiatus during which I starved myself and ate very little chocolate, I'm dusting off my baking skills and thinking about maybe enjoying life once in a while.
Exhibit A: a chocolate ganache frosted cake. The thing that really got me going last weekend was the fact that I'd promised a cake to the folks coordinating a fundraiser at the boys' school. Well, one boy still goes there. Reluctantly at first, I baked and then frosted a chocolate cake using my mama's good old-fashioned chocolate frosting recipe. Equally as reluctantly, the boys turned the cake over to the fundraiser people. My oldest stepson did make a valiant attempt to win the cake back, but his efforts were in vain. Luckily for him, stepmama had an even more decadent cake on her mind, and I went to work on it that very afternoon.
The kids snacked on some mini-cupcakes (frosted with
mom's basic frosting) while I baked the second cake and put together the ganache. Ganache, as you know, is just chocolate melted in hot cream. Many smarter people go by an actual recipe, but I just keep pouring chocolate chips into the hot cream and stirring until it "looks right." You have to let it cool down to 68 degrees F (I use a digital meat thermometer) if you wanna frost cakes with it, but if you catch it at around 70 degrees F, you might be able to pour the ganache over the cakes for a smooth glistening chocolate outer coating. The more glistening, the better. So, I don't have a recipe for my ganache, but I will post here the recipe for my mom's never fail chocolate frosting recipe, because some lucky cake-walk winner out there probably really enjoyed it!
Mom's Chocolate Frosting
1 cup softned butter
1/8 tsp salt
3 cups confectioners sugar
3 oz unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Beat butter with 1 cup of confectioners sugar until fluffy. Melt chocolate. Allow chocolate to cool.
Blend chocolate into butter mixture. Add rest of sugar, alternating with milk. Add vanilla.
