Recipe - Black-Out Cake

CAKE
Three fourths cup Butter, softened
3 teaspoon Baking soda
3 cup Sugar
3 Eggs
One half teaspoon Salt
Three fourths cup Buttermilk
1 1/3 cup Boiling water
4 ounce Unsweetned chocolate, melted
3 cup Flour
Three fourths cup Roasted almonds, minced
2 teaspoon Vanilla extract

CHOCOLATE GANACHE
18 ounce Semisweet choclatechips(3cup
1 One half cup Heavy cream
1 teaspoon Vanilla
2 tablespoon Butter,cut up

1.Preheat oven to 350 F. grease 2 nine inch round cake pans. Dust with
flour, tap out excess. 2.In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar
with electric mixer or medium speed until light and fluffy,12 minutes. add
eggs and vanilla and beat until well blended. add chocolate and beat 12
minutes. 3.Mix together flour, baking soda and salt. Add to chocolate
mixture in two additions alternately with buttermilk. Beat until well
blended. With mixer on low speed, add boiling water and beat until smooth(
batter will be thin) Pour batter into prepared pans. 4.Bake 3540 minutes,
or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in
pans 10 minutes, then unmold onto racks and let cool completely. 5.Make
Chocolate Ganache:In a 2 qart glass measure, combine chocolate chips and
heavy cream. Heat in a microwave oven on HIGH 3 minutes, or until melted
and smooth when stirred. Stir in butter and vanilla. 6.Cover and
refrigerate 1 hour, or until ganache holds its shape and is thick enough to
spread on cake. 7.Cover a cake layer with a little more than 1/3 of
chocolate ganache. Set second layer on top. Frost top and sides of cake
with remaining ganache. Press almonds into side of cake. Refrigerate cake
34 hours, or until ganache is firm, before serving.

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini