- Welcome back to the Baking Journal.

I'm Stephanie, and today, we are making this beautiful little cake for your special someone, a chocolate cake for two.

(upbeat music) I am excited to show you how to make this delicious chocolate cake.

It is the perfect cake to bring to someone you love on Valentine's Day or any other day of the year.

Let's get started.

We are using a five-inch cake pan for our chocolate cake for two.

Give it a good coating with cooking spray, place a parchment round in the bottom of the pan, and set aside.

Next up, whisk together three-fourths cup of flour with a half a teaspoon of baking soda and a half a teaspoon of salt.

We're using melted chocolate and a little bit of brewed coffee to give this cake a fabulous chocolatey flavor.

I'm melting one half cup of chocolate chips in a glass bowl placed over simmering water and adding four tablespoons of butter and one-fourth cup of brewed coffee.

Keep stirring until the chocolate is melted and everything is well mixed.

Okay, looking good.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, I'm starting with two large eggs, a half a cup of granulated sugar, and one half teaspoon of vanilla.

Get that well mixed and then add the melted chocolate.

(upbeat music) Once the chocolate is combined, scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the dry ingredients in thirds, alternating with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients.

(upbeat music) Mix until everything is just combined, and don't forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl a couple more times.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared cake pan and place in a preheated 350-degree oven.

Oh wow, the kitchen smells wonderful.

It's been 35 minutes and our cake is looking good.

I'm going to let a cool in the pan for a few minutes before I flip it out onto a cooling rack.

(upbeat music) So while the cake is cooling, let's make the chocolate ganache.

I'm melting three cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips with two tablespoons of butter in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Once it's melted, stir in one fourth cup of cream and keep stirring until it's smooth and shiny.

Okay, everyone, our cake is out of the oven and cooled, and see how, I'm not sure if you can tell, but it's a little uneven, I put it on its top side, but because we're putting the ganache on and I want this to be as even as possible, I am going to just take a little bit off of the top here to even it up.

So I'm just gently going to take my serrated knife and try, I am not taking off all of it, but I'm just trying to take a nice little chunk, treat for me, to even it up.

And as you can see, there, that is so much better, and it'll give a nice even surface for our ganache.

Now, we're just gonna move our cake back to the wire rack, and I've got a pan underneath and it'll catch all of that delicious ganache and we can use that later.

It's delicious on ice cream or you can dip things in it.

It's really pretty yummy, so don't throw it away.

All right, so here's our cake.

Here's our ganache that we made, and see how nice and shiny that is.

It's pretty lovely.

So we're just going to pour the ganache on the top of the cake, and I'm gonna give it a generous amount because what I want to happen is I want the ganache to gently roll over the sides, and have my spatula, so I'm going to help it and just gently kind of move the ganache on all the sides.

And remember, we're putting sprinkles on the side, so if the ganache on the side isn't perfect, no need to worry about that.

I'm trying not to be too forceful, just trying to evenly coax this beautiful, glossy ganache to the sides.

And then, so I'm gonna kind of take this and gently tap a few times to try and help it ease over the sides a little bit more evenly.

And I also see this one little area right here, so I'm gonna try and just even that out a little bit, knock it a few times, and now I'm just gonna go all the way around the cake and get that ganache kind of smooth over the side of the cake.

(upbeat music) Sometimes it makes it easier if you have your cake pan on a pedestal that turns, that kind of helps you to see all sides, but like I said, we're putting sprinkles on, so I'm not gonna be too fussy about what my sides look like at this point.

Okay, I'm gonna give this one more little gentle tap so our ganache goes on the sides as evenly as possible, and now we're going to take the biggest spatula you have available.

Ideally, if the spatula can fit your cake, that is the best choice, because what we're going to do now is put our sprinkles on the side, and so we want something that's gonna hold our cake while we are gently pushing sprinkles into the sides of our cake.

So I'm gonna move this out of the way right now, and I have here about a cup of chocolate sprinkles.

Any that don't stick and fall back into the bowl, we're just gonna scoop back up on to the side of the cake.

So I'm just taking a handful, and I am pressing gently into my cake, and I'm gonna go all the way around, and turning my cake as I press and use a bowl big enough to catch your sprinkles.

And let me get this maneuvered so I can, I'm right-handed, you guys, so this handle's getting in my way a little bit.

But see how easily the sprinkles are just adhering to the ganache?

(upbeat music) And you know what?

If you have some clumpy sprinkles that land into the bowl, make yourself an ice cream sundae with the ganache and use your chocolate and your sprinkles.

That would be yummy.

Okay, so let me just take a quick look to see if I have sprinkles all the way around and it looks like I do, perfect.

Now, I'm moving my sprinkles outta the way and I have a serving plate here that I'm going to ease, or should I say coax my...

Here, let me grab the spatula.

Coax my cake onto the serving platter gently.

If you guys have watched any of my other videos, you know that I always get nervous when it comes to this, so woo hoo, it's on the plate.

There we go.

Now, it needs to set in the refrigerator for probably an hour before you serve it, but before I put it in the refrigerator, I wanna decorate it with some buttercream, a buttercream rose that I made earlier.

It is beautiful just like this, I think you'll agree, but hey, if I can zhuzh it up, I think you guys know me well enough now to know that I will, so I am just going to take this and put it right in the middle there.

Get the chocolate off my hand.

Look at the mess I made, guys.

Okay, and then I also have some green buttercream that I have a leaf tip on for those of you who are interested.

The leaf tip is one that looks like a little beak, and all I'm going to do is just make a few little leaves along the side, just like that.

Gonna make one more over here, and maybe a third small one on the side there.

So here it is, looking kind of pretty, don't you think?

I'm gonna put it in the fridge and let it set up.

And there we have it.

I think this cake turned out beautifully, but let's do a little quality control and just see how it tastes.

I know it's meant for two, so I promise you I'm not going to taste the whole thing, but I am going to just take a little piece, just to kind of show you guys and to make sure it tastes okay.

So if we look at this beautiful crumb, it's chocolatey, it's kind of fudgy with the ganache.

Let's give it a taste.

(upbeat music) Oh my goodness, the coffee in the chocolate cake really brings out that chocolatey goodness, and then the ganache just adds that little element of fudginess.

This is a delicious cake that anyone you make this for will totally love you for it.

If you've enjoyed this video and wanna watch more delicious recipes, don't forget to subscribe, hit that like button, and I'll see you again soon on another episode of The Baking Journal.

(upbeat music)