This cake was a huge success.  I love it, too, but it’s not my #1, although some components are!!!

Some notes:

1.  Cake part.  I did the ‘regular’ book mix.  I did find it a bit tender, but not terribly so.  It’s not my fave chocolate cake, but it’s quite good.  My fave is the PAACT (Perfect All American Chocolate Torte) from TCB.

2.  Midnight Ganache.  This ganache needs no cake.  It is, bar none, the best.  I made mine around 3:30 pm.  It was still thin at 11 pm, but by 8:00 am (14.5 hours) it was like soft butter!  Plan ahead!!!!  I froze it until I was ready for it.

3.  Brandied Cherries. First, I would like to say that I am the first person to not add booze to anything with my cakes.  But these cherries are the most wonderful thing going and they truly do tie the cake together.  The cake did not have a boozy flavor at all, but it did have a kick!  The 1c. called for in the recipe pretty-well covers the layer (see pic).  A huge thanks to Julie for her patience and advice on cherries, brandy, brandied cherries and mellowing brandied cherries.  I got dried tart cherries, but they have sugar added—so it’s the variety, not that they’re not sweetened at all.  I got E&J VSOP brandy, which was quite tasty on its own.  I added the Lyles after about 18 hours of soaking in straight brandy.  The cherries changed from day-to-day for about a week, mellowing each day.  They soaked for a total of two weeks, and I shook them around each night and sampled them.  I brought a container of them for my old boss who can’t eat chocolate (so couldn’t have cake), and he was just crazy for them!  I now have extras “brewing” for snacks. 

This is a great cake, but would be even better made with the PAACT, in my opinion!!!  Very popular with the work crowd.

Oooo.. pretty!! The cake looks so tall Anne. You made 6 inch right? Love the inside photo of the cake. And I’m so happy to hear that you liked those cherries. I know you were hesitating about it, and so glad that you love them now. Though.. hm.. hope we won’t make a boozy cherry addict out of you (or maybe it’s too late for that? )

And yes the Midnight Ganache is the best! Someone should award Rose for the best Ganache in the world.

I also use the E&J VSOP brand!

Thanks, Jenn!  We are sistahs in brandy!  It’s the full-monty 9” cake!!!

OMG Anne.  How sinful does that cake look!!  I think I have gained 5 pounds just looking at it.  Now I can’t wait to make the Midnight Ganache.  Is it thick enough to pipe large swirls ontop of cupcakes?

Thanks, Liza!

I don’t think that Midnight Ganache is thick enough to pipe.  I think it could be made so by using less water for the cocoa mix, but that’s just a guess.  If I were to use less water, I would use 1/4 -1/3 cup less and it might be thick enough to pipe then.  If you did that and it still wasn’t thick enough to pipe after resting, I would think you could melt another 3 ounces of 60% chocolate, and the extra ‘solid chocolate’ would firm it right up!  But perhaps someone with piping experience would be able to answer this definitively.

I gotta tell ya’, though.  As I reflect—and I sort of mentioned this in my initial post—I don’t think the DFC—the cake part itself—‘gets it.’  The hub even said it doesn’t seem like one of Rose’s cakes, and, of course, it is one that didn’t originate with her, as she says in the intro.  He said the cake part is ‘good,’ but it falls flat a bit, and I really do agree.  It is our least of Rose’s chocolate cakes I’ve made.  I’ve made the Perfect All American Chocolate Butter Cake, Perfect All American Chocolate Butter Torte, Chocolate Domingo, and the Chocolate Bread (with cocoa increased to ‘normal’ chococlate cake proportions), and they’re all nothing short of fabulous.  But this one, not so much, either for flavor or texture.  To us, it could be any recipe and hasn’t the magic of a Rose recipe.

However, love the ganache!  Love the cherries!  Both are completely awesome and should not be passed over!

It’s stunning! You have a real talent for frosting cakes.

Anne, it is glorious, job well done!  Both the cake and the photos are perfection.

So glad you took the extra time with the cherries and came up with something you love.  I did the same thing the first time I made these, I kept making more and using them for ice cream topping, cake topping, pudding topping, etc.

I have to say that I like this cake best of all of Rose’s chocolate butter cakes- as good as the all-american is, I do enjoy the complexity and bittersweet quality of this cake.  Good thing Rose has so many styles to choose from!

Liza, as for piping this ganache, I piped the swirls on my cupcakes, and they ended up looking nice, but they didn’t quite hold their swirls perfectly, it made for a softened, or melted effect.  If you opt to reduce the water, please let us know how it works.

Thank you Flour Girl and Julie for your very sweet compliments!!

Julie, I ended up with 3 batches of cherries in all!  Some with Lyles, some without Lyles (my faves) and some that were a sort of hybrid.  I gave another jar of them to my ex-boss, and he is just thrilled, so I told him how to make them.  They are crazy good, so thanks again for all of your advice and encouragement!

I think chocolate cakes are definitely an individual preference thing, so, yes, it’s lucky that Rose has so many different ones to accommodate everyone’s tastes!!

how exciting! I’ve yet to try this recipe- I’ll try it in a few weeks after I’m off my very-strict diet! I’ll have just 1 piece!!

Anne, you are hilarious brewing up extra bottles of those brandied cherries!  Make sure to drink a glass of water with every bowl of cherries you eat.  : )  It sounds like your work crowd liked the cake better than you did…this one really is intensely chocolate.  Are you going to try it again with the optional mixing method?  Was it the texture that you weren’t wowed with, or the actual flavor?  Gorgeous cake BTW!!

Hi, Loop & NYB!

Ha, NY, you’re better than I if you can stop at just one piece of cake!

Loop, thanks for the compliment on the cake!!  I could become a brandied cherry lush.  Okay, what didn’t WOW me about the cake.  First, it’s a GOOD cake, it’s just not my fave.  I’ve grown spoiled by being continuously WOW’d !!!!  I think this cake doesn’t ‘go’ with the frosting and cherries.  The cake isn’t chocolatey enough for them and isn’t sturdy enough for them.  At the same time, I don’t think the cake should be ‘fudgey’ which is what the alternate mixing method reportedly produces (haven’t tried it).  I’d say the perfect cake for this would be the PAACT (and yes, I am laughing as I type this last sentence, as I recognize that I am a complete fool).  But it’s true!  It’s super-chocolatey! It’s toothsome without being fudgy or dense!  It’s fluffy without being tender!  It is chocolate cake perfection—it can hold its own with the intense flavor of the ganache, and it’s toothsome enough to handle a ganache texture.  At the same time, it’s not fudgey, so it won’t turn into a ‘goosh’ with the cherries and ganache combo.