This is the last of this year’s Valentine’s Day mini-cakes. It was very enjoyable to make, as I find pouring ganache to be rather fun as I’ve gotten the hang of the consistency and the pouring finesse.
This has pomegranate cake with lemon curd filling, and a dark chocolate ganache. If you have not tried the combination of pomegranate and lemon, I highly recommend it! To get the pomegranate flavor, I first tried just a flavor oil, but I didn’t like it very much. I ended up using a mix of pomegranet juice, grenadine, and lemon juice to get the flavor that tasted right to me. It ended up being a rather lovely neutral color.
After layering and filling the cake, I did a thin crumb-coat using the lemon curd. This is to seal the crumbs and also to prevent the chocolate ganache from absorbing into the cake. Much cleaner and smoother result this way.
There is generally two consistencies of ganache. A 1:1 ratio of chocolate to heavy cream gives you a smoothly flowing chocolate that is great for fondue and pouring over cake. When cooled, it forms a soft ’shell’. You can also whip this ganache into a spreadable chocolate frosting.
A 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream gives you a chocolate that will harden when cooled, so it’s great for dipping strawberries or making candy.
The fondant and the little red beads along the bottom are made of fondant. I liked the simplicity of this cake, it really felt romantic and sweet.
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