Chocolate Genoise with Whipped Peanut Butter Ganache

To tell you the truth, I wasn't really looking forward to making this cake. I'm one of the few people I know who isn't crazy about Reese's Peanut Butter Cups--too sweet, too sticky, and not at all subtle. And the black raspberry liqueur? That just sounded weird. But this cake was different: one of the best chocolate cakes I've tasted, and definitely the best chocolate genoise. Not too sweet, not too sticky, and subtle as the dickens. Move over, peanut butter cups. You've been bested.

Of course, I had to add another expensive liqueur to my steadily growing supply. You can see why Faithy fell so in love with the bottle that she refused to open hers. But the pretty crown stays intact when it's opened, so there's no reason not to. I'll confess I had a few nips while I was baking. It tastes kind of like a very grown-up version of black raspberry Kool-Aid but improved my mood much more than Kool-Aid would have.
Here are some of the other bottles I've bought/used for various cake projects:

This was another very easy cake to make. No, it's not on the Q&E list. Are the cakes getting easier or am I actually getting better? Whatever--it's nice not to face every new cake with dread of failure. (Although, as you'll see, there was a total failure involved here). Note that I left my whisk in the cocoa mixture, just as instructed.

I can never resist including a picture of the lovely, billowy egg mixture after it's been beaten for "at least five minutes." Don't be fooled and stop beating after three!

The cocoa mixture is gently folded into the batter, making--what else?--a chocolate batter.

I baked the cake for 25 minutes, and immediately took it out of the pan "to prevent the collapse of its delicate foam structure." This takes two wire racks that have been coated with cooking spray. By the time I turned the cake back over, the lines of the first rack were etched into the cake. Not a problem, though, because the top is going to be taken off anyway so the syrup can soak in.

Here is the cake after it's been syruped on both sides. Note the tart pan bottom in the background. After seeing a genoise fall apart before my eyes when I transferred it to a serving dish, I never tried that again without the assistance of this sturdy pan bottom.

On to the ganache! I melted the chocolate, added the peanut butter, and tried the whip in the cream. It didn't whip at all. "Rose! WTF?!" I said to myself. "This is never going to work!" Suddenly I had a thought. Surely it wasn't possible that I had poured in the half-and-half instead of the heavy cream? I checked the refrigerator. Oh, it was possible all right. Note: making whipped ganache with half-and-half is not a good idea. Jim said, "Do we have to start over?" "Yes." "Do I have to go out and get more chocolate?" "Yes." "What percent?" Don't you love that? My non-cooking, non-baking husband is asking me what percentage of cacao is supposed to be in the chocolate he's going to pick up.

Armed with more Scharffenburger 60% semisweet chocolate, I start over. This time it works. First it looks speckled and unpromising.

Then, in just seconds, it whips into the perfect consistency. It's so good! I was afraid the peanut butter would overwhelm, but it's just the right amount of peanut butter to make itself known but stay in the background.

It was amazingly easy to frost this cake. Really, it should be on the Q&E list. If you don't make the mistake of grabbing the half and half carton, everything about this cake and ganache goes together so smoothly. I had a little trouble again slipping the waxed paper strips out from under the cake, but I left it refrigerated for longer than I did last week, and I got them out without doing much damage to the frosting. I wonder if parchment would work better than waxed paper.

We went out for dinner with some friends. When the waitress asked if we wanted dessert, I told them they couldn't eat dessert at the restaurant; they had to come back to our house. They are used to my bossy ways and didn't put up much of a fight, especially when I told them they could also taste the Chambord.
Perhaps the only thing I'd do differently next time is use all the Chambord syrup. I didn't think the cake would need much syrup because I could see it wasn't going to be dry. And it wasn't dry, and probably didn't need all the syrup, but the black raspberry flavor was so delicious that I wished I could taste it even more. On the other hand, you could make a case for it being perfect just the way it was.

TASTING PANEL
Karen: "This is no ordinary chocolate cake--it just bursts with flavor."
Jim: "I like the black raspberry taste. Now I know why there's a crown on the bottle--it's royally good."
June: "It looks like it's going to be a dense, heavy cake, like a flourless torte, but then it turns out to be so light. It's a really good cake."
David: "I agree that it's really good. It doesn't have much relation to peanut butter candy."