Valentines Chocolate Cream Ganache Cakes With Raspberries

What You Need:

CAKE

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

4 eggs at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup unsalted butter melted, cooled

FILLING

1/4 cup sugar

2 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

20 fresh raspberries

CHOCOLATE GANACHE

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

What You Do:

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Line bottom of 13x9-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in bowl and set aside. Add the sugar, eggs and vanilla into the bowl of a mixer and beat at high speed 5 minutes or until fluffy, thick and pale yellow color. Then, stir melted butter into egg mixture. Once mixed gently stir flour mixture into egg mixture until just combined. I added mine through a sifter to make sure all the dry ingredients were evenly mixed with no clumps. Pour and spread into prepared pan. Bake 11-13 minutes or until center springs back when touched. Once you pull it out of the oven, run knife around edges to loosen sides. Let it cool. 

While the cake cools, combine the sugar, cream cheese and vanilla in a bowl and beat until creamy. Add 1/2 cup whipping cream; continue beating until soft peaks form. Set filling aside. Next, add the other 1/2 cup whipping cream into saucepan; cook over low heat until bubbles form around edge of pan. Put dark chocolate chips into separate bowl and pour hot whipping cream over top. Stir until melted and smooth. Set aside. 

Cut cake into 8 heart shapes using medium-sized cookie cutter. You will have extra cake that you can use to make mini mason jar versions…so don’t throw it away! Spread a generous layer of the whipped cream filling onto 4 of the heart cut outs. Place 5 raspberries onto filling of 4 hearts; gently press into filling. Put the 4 remaining heart cutouts on top of the raspberries, filling and other cake (like a sandwich). Spoon ganache over tops and let it drip down sides! Serve! You will have extra supplies…so grab 3 mini mason jars and layer starting with cake-filling-rasberries-cake-ganache. You can store cakes in the fridge for a few hours if you need to, just pull them out 30 mins before serving!

“Recipe Source: Land O’Lakes”