Chocolate Baileys Mud Cake

For the cake

• 150 g unsalted butter cut into pieces
• 100 g dark chocolate chopped
• 100 g caster sugar
• 100 g brown sugar
• 50 g Dutch cocoa powder sifted
• 180 ml Baileys Irish Cream Whiskey
• 170 g plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs, room temperature

For the Chocolate Ganache

• 200 g dark chocolate finely chopped
• 100 ml Cream
• 100 ml Baileys Irish Cream
• Pinch of salt
• 1Tbl / 15 g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 160° C
2. In a pan over low heat, add the butter, chocolate, sugars, cocoa powder and Baileys. When chocolate and butter have melted, whisk together to comboine making sure to get rid of any lumps of sugar or cocoa powder. Remove from heat and leave to cool for 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, grease and line a 20-22 cm round cake tin.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.
5. Add the eggs to the slightly cooled chocolate mixture and whisk to combine.
6. Gently fold the sifted flour mix until free of lumps. Scrape into cake and bake for about 40-45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean ( ideally you want to see some moist crumbs stuck to it ). Don’t over-bake so better to be under than over. The top of the cake will be a little cracked but this is normal for a mud cake ( you ‘ll be trimming the top and eating them anyways !) ).
7. Remove from oven and cool down in tin for 10 minutes before unmoulding and cooling it down completely.

Ganache

1. Place the chopped chocolate in a heat- proof bowl and set aside
2. Bring the cream , Baileys and salt to a simmer in a pan .Pour over the chocolate 1/3 of the cream and stir, then the second third and the last one stirring gently to combine then beat in the butter.
3. Set aside at room temperature and cool until it’s thick enough to spread over the cooled cake. Gently stir the ganache occasionally as it cools to keep the temperature even and the ganache smooth.

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