Chocolate cake with raspberry & ganache filling

Ingredients

• 1 cup boiling water
• 3/4 cup (75 g) natural unsweetened cocoa
• 2 cups (260 g) all-purpose flour
• 3 Tablespoons buttermilk powder (in place of actual buttermilk)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
• 1 cup (240 g) golden brown sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
• 4 large eggs, room temp
• 3/4 cup (6 ¼ oz) water, room temp (also in place of actual buttermilk)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Raspberry and Chocolate Ganache Fillings:

for raspberry layer:

• 10 ounce jar raspberry "spreadable fruit"

for ganache layer:

• 9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 1/8 cup heavy whipping cream

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar
• 2 teaspoons clear vanilla
• pinch of sea salt
• 1/4 cup milk, optional
• Fresh raspberries and Raspberry preserves for garnish

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Preparation

• Preheat to 350 F or 325 F if using black cake pans. Grease and flour (2) 9 inch round pans and line with parchment.
• Combine boiling water and cocoa in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Set aside.
  In a medium bowl, sift together dry ingredients (flour, buttermilk powder, baking soda, and salt). Set aside.
• In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla and set aside. In large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars together. Beat in eggs/vanilla mixture.
• Stir room temperature water into cocoa mixture. Add this cocoa mixture alternately with dry ingredients in 3 additions, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.
  
• Divide evenly between the two prepared pans. Lightly spin the pans on a hard surface to distribute the batter.
• Bake 28-38 minutes (see note) or until a toothpick comes out barely clean. Cool and frost.
• Raspberry and Chocolate Ganache Fillings:
  Place your leveled bottom cake layer on a cake plate. Spread the red raspberry preserves onto this bottom layer to taste. I used about 3/4 of the jar.
  Place chopped chocolate in medium bowl. Bring heavy cream just to a boil in heavy medium saucepan. Pour hot cream over the chocolate and let stand 1 minute, then stir until ganache is melted and smooth. Transfer ganache to medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ganache is thick enough to spread, stirring occasionally, for about 1 1/2 hours. It should thicken to about the consistency of a heavy pudding and should not be runny.
  Using an offset spatula, spread the ganache over the preserves, careful not to mix the two together too much - you want two separate layers. Use as much ganache as you want - we probably used about 2/3 of the ganache recipe in this middle layer. We froze the rest for later, but you could find other places to use it on this cake if you wanted. For example, for some added chocolate, you could spread the remaining ganache on the top of the top layer and place the whole cake in the freezer for about 30 minutes until the ganache is set enough to be able to put buttercream frosting over it.
• Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
  Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and turn on the mixer.
  Add all confectioners sugar and keep speed on low.
  When all sugar is incorporated in, add vanilla and salt. Let mix for 5 min. If frosting is too stuff, add the milk by the tablespoon until the desired consistency is achieved.
  
• To garnish:
  After frosting, pipe a thin line around the edge of the top of the cake. This will act as your glue to put the fresh raspberries on. For extra raspberriness, spread a thin layer of preserves across the top of the cake, inside the ring of raspberries. This will be easier to do after the cake has been refrigerated for a bit and the frosting is set.
  Keep the cake in a cake dome in the refrigerator. Remove from the fridge about 2 hours before serving.

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