Mini Chocolate Cakes with Ganache Frosting
These gorgeous Mini Chocolate Cakes have two layers of soft and fluffy chocolate sponge, stacked with swirls of velvety smooth chocolate ganache frosting! Perfect to bake for a Christmas celebration or as a thoughtful homemade edible gift.
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Ingredients
Mini chocolate cakes
- 1 box Menier Moelleux Sponge Mix
- 90 g Unsalted butter
- 4 medium Eggs at room temperature
Chocolate ganache frosting
- 150g Unsalted butter soft at room temperature
- 350g Icing sugar
- 0.5 tsp Salt
- 100 ml Double cream
- 100 g Menier 70% Dark Chocolate
Decoration
- Frosted cranberries
- Desiccated coconut
Instructions
First make the mini chocolate cakes
- Preheat the oven to 170°C and line a large rectangular traybake tin (the link to the one I used is above) with greaseproof paper.
- Make up the Menier chocolate cake mix as per the instructions on the box.
- Pour the mixture into the baking tin and spread out to the edges.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes* until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the baking tin on a wire rack.
Make the chocolate ganache frosting
- Beat the soft butter, icing sugar and salt together until smooth. Set aside for now.
- Very finely chop the dark chocolate and place it in a bowl.
- Heat the double cream in a saucepan on low heat until piping hot and small bubbles start to form around the edge. Stir every so often so the cream doesn't burn.
- Pour the hot cream all over the chopped chocolate and cover with a plate to lock in the heat for 2 minutes.
- Use a whisk to gently stir the chocolate until it melts into a glossy ganache**.
- Let the ganache cool for 10 minutes, then add it to the buttercream and mix well until smooth.
- Spoon the ganache frosting into a piping bag fitted with a small open star nozzle.
Assemble the mini cakes
- Lift the cake out of the baking tin and peel back the greaseproof paper.
- Use a small round cookie cutter (4.5cm) to stamp out the mini cakes. You should get about 15 in total. TIP: you can use the leftover cake crumbs to make cake pops.
- Pipe a swirl of ganache frosting on top of half of the mini cakes.
- Place the other mini cakes on top, gently pressing them down to sandwich them together.
- Pipe another swirl of frosting on top, sprinkle on a little desiccated coconut and decorate with frosted cranberries.
Notes
*If you're using a mini cake baking tray, reduce the baking time to 15-16 minutes. If you're using individual mini baking tins (roughly 10cm each) bake for 18-20 minutes.
**Issues with your ganache? Read the troubleshooting tips in the main blog post to fix it.
Store your mini chocolate cakes covered, at room temperature, for up to 3 days.