Desserts

Brownies' cake for 25th

 

25 !!!! 25 years.

Wow ... Time flies. Seems like yesterday. My dear friends and relatives gathered at my parents house to bid a farewell. Seems like yesterday. I became a bride and started the common life with my husband. A life with easy and difficult paths. With sad and happy moments. With lots of joy, stress, emotions, grief, fights but most of all, with love. 25 years with a man who is always besides me. Who supports and stands there for me. Who takes care of me but more importantly, he understands me. A great father and husband. I will not lie. All these years were not like rose gardens. But side by side we conquer the happiness. Hoping to make it happen for more years to come.

25 years of marriage. We could not celebrate it without a cake. A cake made out of two layers of brownies, with ganache filling and fondant decoration.

 

 

Ingredients :

 
brownies 
  • 300 gr chocolate
  • 160 gr butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 300 gr sugar
  • 200 gr flour
ganache
  • 340 gr chocolate
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 vanilla
fondant
  • 1 kg powdered sugar
  • 140 gr glycoze
  • 1 tbsp glycerine
  • 50 gr water
  • 20 γρ ζελατίνη (σκόνη)
  • 30 gr margarine
  • 1 tsp vanilla
 

Preparation :

 
Brownies 
  1. Preheat oven at 200C .
  2. Shift flour in a bowl. Set aside.
  3. Melt chocolate and butter in bain-marie. Have low heat and stir with a spatula to help melting.
  4. Meanwhile, in mixer's bowl beat the eggs and sugar at high speed till mixture is fluffy.
  5. When ready, pure chocolate into egg mixture and stir gently to homogenize.
  6. Add flour at spoonfuls. Stir till flour is incorporated .
  7. Butter/flour two 20cms cake pans and pour batter evenly splitted.
  8. Bake at 180C for about 20 mins.
  9. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 mins. Un-mold and allow to cool completely.
Ganache 
  1. Finely chop up the dark chocolate. Keep the size the same so they melt easily.
  2. Toss the chocolate bits into a small heat-safe bowl.
  3. Add the heavy cream to a small sauce pan.
  4. Heat the cream until little bubbles start to form around the edge of the pot.
  5. Then pour the hot cream over top of the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for 1-2 minutes so that cream softens up the chocolate.
  6. Then gently stir and combine the two ingredients together.
  7. Add the vanilla and stir. Let it aside to firm a bit
fondant
  1. Shift sugar in a bowl 
  2. In a pan, place half of the sugar. Make a well in the centre. Keep aside.
  3. In low heat bain-marie place gelatine and water. Stir to dissolve gelatine. 
  4. Keep stirring and add glucose, butter, glycerine and vanilla. 
  5. When omogenized, pour mixture into the well of the sugar. 
  6. With a spatula stir to combine the ingredients .
  7. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and knead, adding the icing sugar you've kept aside till you have an elastic fondant. The icing sugar that you'll eventually use depends on many factors and mainly from room temperature and humidity. I've used almost 900 gr.
  8. When your fondant is ready, wrap with cling film and let it aside till needed.
Put cake together
  1. Take brownies and with a knife straighten the tops.
  2. Place the first layer on the base.
  3. Spread half of the ganache on top.
  4. Put the second layer on top of ganache.
  5. Cover top and sides of the cake with the remaining ganache.
  6. Take extra care in spreading evenly as this with help coverage with fondant.
  7. Put in fridge for 10 minutes to firm .
  8. Make with fondant a round "fyllo" and cover the cake.

In case you want to decorate with shape made of fondant, keep a small piece and colour it with paste colours. Make fyllo with the coloured fondant and cut shapes. For more details on fondant you can visit Nickys blog. Fondant recipe is found there.