Champagne Truffle Cake

This was the cake Bailey and I came up with (mostly Bailey's idea actually) for our second Clandestine Cake Club meeting. The theme was "All you need is Love (and cake)", so we decided to make a chocolate and champagne truffle torte-cum-cake topped with actual Champagne Truffles. Who said romance was dead?

As it was my Department Review week I was mega busy so Bailey stepped in and made the sponge as well as doing all the assembling on the night of the Cake Club. What a lovely boyfriend he is. He did actually beg me not to tell anyone at the club that he had helped ("I don't want any fuss"), but good old Jeni dobbed him in!

I think Bailey did an excellent job with the presentation and it looked very dainty. It was very tasty and rich and EXTREMELY chocolatey, in fact Steven Doyle took one bite of one of the truffles and his eyes went funny and he had to immediately go off to find a cup of tea.

Recipe:

For the Champagne Truffles
200g dark chocolate
200g milk chocolate
100ml double cream
65g butter
100ml champagne
2 desertspoons port
100g white chocolate

For the Chocolate Sponge
115g dark chocolate
85g butter
180g soft brown sugar
2 egg yolks
180g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
A pinch of salt
250ml milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

For the Champagne Truffle Filling
250g dark chocolate
200g milk chocolate
2 tbsp golden syrup
500ml double cream
70ml champagne
Cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Then, start off by making the Champagne Truffles. Break the dark and milk chocolate up in a large bowl. Place the cream and butter in a saucepan and bring to the boil.

Pour this over the chocolate and stir well so that the chocolate melts to make a lovely glossy ganache. You can give this a bit of a helping hand in the microwave if necessary.

Add the champagne to the chocolate ganache mix - this will make a nice fizzy chocolatey mix. Stir well before adding the port.

Place the bowl of ganache in the cool to fridge. When set, take teaspoons of the truffle mix out and roll into little balls. Refrigerate.

Now make the chocolate sponge. Melt the chocolate. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until smooth.

Add the egg yolks and mix well, before adding the melted chocolate.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a separate bowl. In a jug, mix the milk and vanilla extract. Add one third of the flour mix to the first bowl, then a third of the milk mix, stirring well each time. Repeat until all the flour and milk has been added.

Spoon the mixture into a greased cake tin and bake in the oven for around 35-40 minutes.

While the sponge is cooling, begin to make the Champagne Truffle Filling. Take a saucepan and fill it with water and bring to the boil. Break the chocolate up and place in a large bowl, with one third of the cream and the golden syrup. Heat the bowl of chocolate, cream and syrup over the pan of water until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

Meanwhile, whisk together the rest of the cream and the champagne in a bowl until you have a nice thick, frothy mixture.

Mix the chocolate mix and the creamy champagne mix together until completely combined.

By now your sponge will have cooled. Take it out of the cake tin and cut in half horizontally to make two disks.

Line the cake tin and put one of the sponge disks into the cake tin. Cover with half of the Champagne Truffle Filling, before putting the other disk of sponge on top and pressing down to get a nice even top.

Cover with the rest of the Champagne Truffle filling and place the whole cake into the fridge until ready to serve.

When you're about ready to serve the cake, decorate the cake by sprinkling with cocoa powder, icing sugar, white chocolate, whatever you want, but whatever you use, roll the truffles in this too. Arrange the truffles onto the top of the cake and serve. Warning - extremely chocolatey!