This post is also available in: Romanian

“You have grown so much to be a part of my life that it is empty without you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Love pushes our limits, it transforms us, either we want to accept or not, it helps us to find a common path where we use same language to live a peaceful experience. Love it’s above all an exchange of feelings that brings peace in our hearts and lives. Love it’s ambitious because finds the wildest in us and it’s abating our urge of over-appreciated human self-destruction into a better version of us. Love puts us in a real space, while keeping its mystery, contentedness, gentleness.

There is nothing that speaks more to me about love than a warm house in winter times, a cat purring gently with belly up, a glass of warm milk or red wine, a good meal and a good heart close to mine. Love makes us stronger, full-hearted and pushes us on a road full of unknown, where we need to go beyond anything we have met, known and experimented before and find that only tiny lane where we feel harmoniously happy. Here we replace our selfishness with gentleness of other’s heart and accept more of the imperfect world. Finding love equals to me with finding a piece of you that will balance and counterbalance any sadness, happiness, failure or success and will fill any need you may have, will make you see life at its true color, neither too perfect or imperfect.

This short film and cake is my small and humble dedication to my other half, for our four years of love, time in which together we brought so many things to life. I have been fortunate enough to have had received gifts that speak more of commitment and heart value than money, thus this blog would have never existed if my boyfriend would not have supported me enormous into making it, our beloved cat would have never had the chance to brighten our days, if it wasn’t for him, our companionship would have never evolved and be today an incredible peaceful adventure if it wasn’t for both of us. I simply love you so…

Love chateau      Love_chateauC1Love1 Love_chateauD1 Love chateauLove_chateauE1Love_chateauF1

Gluten Free Caramel Ganache Festive Cake (adapted from Bon Appetit)
Ingredients (makes 12 servings):
100g white rice flour
100g millet flour
100g buckwheat flour
20g almond flour
5 tablespoons cocoa
100g chocolate (70%)
250ml hot coffee
130g butter, at room temperature
200g sugar
100ml buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs

Caramel Ganache:
50ml cold water
200g powder sugar
200g patisserie chocolate
250g heavy cream (15%)
2 teaspoons powder gelatine

Directions for the cake:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Coat a spring-form pan (22cm) with nonstick spray. Place cocoa powder and chocolate in a medium metal bowl. Pour hot coffee over. Let stand for 1 minute. Stir until smooth. Stir in buttermilk; set aside.
2. Whisk the flours and baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating to blend between additions and occasionally scraping down sides and bottom of bowl. Beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add dry ingredients in 3 additions, alternating with chocolate mixture in 2 additions, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Pour batter evenly in the pan; smooth tops.
3. Bake the cake until a tester inserted into the centers comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer to wire rack; let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes. Invert cake onto rack and let it cool completely. Turn cake over.

Directions for the caramel ganache:
1. Place chocolate and salt in a medium bowl. Stir sugar and water in a medium deep saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and cook without stirring, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides with a wet pastry brush, until sugar is deep amber, about 9 minutes. Remove from heat and gradually add cream (mixture will bubble vigorously). Stir over medium heat until caramel bits dissolve. Pour over chocolate in bowl. Stir until mixture is smooth. Let cool slightly.
2. Place 1 cake layer in spring-form pan. Pour 1 cup ganache over. Chill until set, about 30 minutes. Cover remaining ganache and let stand at room temperature.

Filling and Assembly:
1 . Place 2 tablespoons cold water in a small heatproof glass or metal bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over; let stand until gelatin softens, about 10 minutes. Pour water to a depth of 1/2-inch into a small skillet set over medium heat. Transfer bowl with gelatin to skillet; stir until gelatin dissolves, about 2 minutes. Remove bowl from skillet. Set aside.
2. Place cream and powdered sugar in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat cream until soft peaks form. Add gelatin; beat filling until firm peaks form.
3. Spoon filling over chilled ganache on cake layer in pan; smooth top. Gently place second cake layer on top. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and chill until cream layer is set, at least 6 hours or overnight.
4. Remove sides from spring-form pan. Using a knife or offset spatula, scrape off any filling that may have leaked out from between cakes to form smooth sides. Transfer cake to a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet.
5. Rewarm remaining ganache until just pourable. (Microwave in a microwave-safe bowl, or set a metal bowl over a large saucepan of simmering water until just warm, not hot.) Pour ganache over cake, tilting cake as needed to allow ganache to drip down sides and using an offset spatula to help spread ganache, if needed, to cover sides of cake. Chill until ganache is set, about 1 hour. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour before serving. Sprinkle cake with flaky sea salt or sugar.


 

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