Chocolate Banana Stud Cake

Rose's Heavenly Cakes, Page 96: Chocolate Banana Stud Cake

I never remember to take step by step photos!!  I think it's not easy to bake and take photos at the same time cos when i bake, i really concentrate..yup..Really! lol! 

I made the ganache like just before i baked the cake..lol! But...i put the ganache in the freezer to expedite the hardening process..and it seems to work quite well..just in time when i need to frost the cake.  I added rum to the ganache. 

The recipe is easy..pretty straight forward. Except when looking at the recipe, i can't find the oven temperature!  So i baked at 175c for 45mins.   I baked in 2 6" cake pan instead.  I wanted to layer the cake and at the same time, i thought to myself, the smaller the surface area, the lesser studs i need to put onto the cake..LOL!   I measured the weight of the banana and realized that it is slightly more than 1 banana..(i ate the left-over of the 2nd banana).  

After the cake cooled, i frosted ganache over and realised it is not very easy to frost on such a soft cake. The cake is exceptionally soft and tender. The cake kept wobbling..lol!  I look at the chocolate chips and felt lazy....so tiny & so many to put on the cake..  then I found some M&Ms...these were the halloween ones sold Oct last year and nobody bothered to eat them..including me..lol!  I thought i better use it up to decorate cake instead before this coming halloween and before the expiry of the M&Ms.  Plus M&Ms surface area larger..so means less work..lol!

Verdict:  Cake is exceptionally tender & soft with a hint of banana flavor and melts in the mouth.  My daughter didn't like the ganache and said it was bitter. But that's my fault i think cos i couldn't tell if the chocolate i used was 75% or 65% cocoa...the print on the paper faded off..   Now that she complained bitter, i guess must be 75%..:p  To my husband & me its ok cos i like dark chocolate...plus with all the other chocolate, I thought should blend in quite nicely.  I like the texture of the chocolate cake..although i'm not a fan of the combination of banana and chocolate though.    My husband doesn't like anything banana and yet said this cake is yummy, says so much for itself right?  

PS: However nobody really liked the chips or M&Ms..neither did i..we all threw out the chips after taking a bite with the chips on (what a waste..i thought of recycling the unwanted chips into cookies..lol!..of coz i didn't..just a mere thought that's all..). Eating chips or M&Ms on its own is fine..but eating with the cake..i don't like cos it mask the actual flavor of the cake which on its own is delicious enough imo.