12-Layer Chocolate Cake

Multi-layered cake is a classic dessert that has become very popular in North America. In 2010, a trend called naked cake as emerged in weddings. Same making process as cake layers are baked and stacked with filling but without an outer layer of frosting. My 12-layer chocolate cake can just do that. You will still need to make a third of the honey ganache glaze recipe to cover the top.
The best suitable sponges for a ganache base cake are the viennois biscuit, joconde biscuit and pain de gênes. Pain de Gênes ''bread of Genoa'' is a cake made largely from almond paste, eggs and melted butter, but only a minimal amount of flour. Pain de gênes can be made GF. Cake that contain ganache is best enjoyed at room temperature!. So, leave cake out for a couple of hours prior to serve. You will find the original pain de gênes made with almond paste/marzipan in my Pastry Fundamentals Course. Make a day ahead.

Make the pain de gêne/sponge one or 2 days prior to use; it will be easier to slice. Use a tall 8 -inch/20 cm diameter cake pan for the sponge. Grease with soften butter and flour. Use butter and cooking spray if making the cake GF. In the food processor, turn powdered sugar and almond meal to fine powder (this almond-sugar mixture is called tant pour tant/TPT in macaron making). In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat on high speed the almond-sugar mix and eggs for 7 mins or so. Meanwhile, sift together flour with cocoa powder and baking soda. In a large pastry bowl, mix one-third of the batter with the melted butter. Add the sifted powders and fold in the remaining batter. Pour mixture in the prepared mold.

Set oven temp to 350ºF/180ºC. Bake sponge for ≈ 50 minutes. Let cool for 5 mins and de-mold. Leave cake out or refrigerate overnight prior to slice.

Chop chocolates if needed and melt over a bain-marie; stirring up every so often – do not over heat chocolate; remove from bain-marie as soon as it is melted. Meanwhile, bring to a quick boil heavy cream. Mix a third of the hot cream in the melted chocolate with a rubber spatula and add remaining heavy cream gradually. Smooth out and add hazelnut praliné/spread (it must be at room temp, do not add it cold). Smooth out ganache using an immersion blender if needed. Leave ganache at room temperature until ready to use.

Use a 8X3 -inch/20X8 cm cake ring lined with cake collar or parchment. Place prepared cake ring onto a flat tray lined with parchment. Cut out sponge into 6 slices and keep then in order. The bottom of the sponge should be the bottom of the cake. Place the first sponge in the cake ring and and press down evenly using a flat device (ramekin). Moisturize sponge with the punch (do not over do). Then pipe out the first layer of ganache making sure it touches all sides of the ring. Do not overload with ganache; the sponge and ganache should have the same height. Do likewise with remaining sponges, punch and ganache. Finish cake with a thin layer of ganache and even out using an off set spatula.

Freeze cake for 4 hours at least before un-molding. Keep frozen until ready to glaze.

Chablon is a mixture of melted dark chocolate with the addition of 10% of oil. It strengthen cakes especially when they have been moisturized with syrup. It remains optional though. Flip frozen cake and quickly coat the bottom cake with the melted chocolate mixture. Flip again and keep cake frozen until ready to glaze.

Melt chocolate with oil (do not over heat chocolate–just melted and remove from bain-marie). Transfer melted chocolate to a narrow container and add cocoa powder. Meanwhile, bring to a light boil heavy cream combined with honey and pour in chocolate and mix using an immersion blender keeping the nozzle down to prevent air bubbles to form. Pass through a sieve and keep at room temp until ready to glaze.