Garth Brooks Croke on Chocolate Cake

Forgive the tortured attempt at a punny name for this cake. If you're in Ireland, you've been living under a rock if you haven't heard about the Garth Concert debacle. I had tickets. Good tickets. I've wanted to see Garth since I was 14. Sadly, it's not to be but I'm going to console myself with this rich, fudgey chocolate cake and, much like Garth, I'm going to have five slices, or none.

For the cake:
200gr dark chocolate (I like my chocolate cake slightly bitter and use 74% cocoa solids but anything from 60% will work).
200gr butter
130ml cold water
2 teaspoons of granulated/instant coffee
3 eggs
50ml milk
190gr caster sugar
190gr light muscovado sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
90gr self raising flour
80gr plain flour
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of sugar

Chocolate ganache:
200gr dark chocolate
Small carton of cream (c.300ml, most small cartons I find in supermarkets are a little under that but that's ok)
3 tablespoons caster sugar

White chocolate buttercream (this is optional. The ganache recipe will make enough to coat and fill the cake but I think this really adds a sweetness that works well with the slightly bitter dark chocolate cake):
100gr white chocolate, melted and allowed to cool
140gr softened butter
140gr icing sugar

Preheat your oven to 180 Celsius (or 160 in a fan oven)

To make the cake-
In a heatproof dish, mix the coffee and water, add the chocolate and butter. This will need to be melted over a pot of simmering water. Once fully melted and combined, set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, combine the sugars, flours, cocoa, and bicarbonate of soda, mixing gently with your fingers or a fork to ensure there are no lumps.
In a third bowl, beat the eggs and milk gently.

Add the egg mixture and the melted chocolate to the dry ingredients and, using a spatula, mix fully so that you have a dark, gooey batter.

Split the batter evenly between two greased and lined 8" sandwich tins and bake for 1hr 20mins.

To make the ganache-
In a small saucepan, heat the cream and sugar until just coming to the boil. Remove from the heat and immediately mix in the chocolate which should be broken into chunks. Keep stirring with a small whisk until the chocolate has completely melted. Allow to cool and thicken.

To make the buttercream-
Melt the white chocolate and allow to cool. In a large, clean bowl, beat the butter using an electric whisk and slowly beat in the sugar. Once combined, pour in the cooled chocolate and continue mixing until the buttercream is fluffy but stiff.

Once the cake is out of the oven, allow to cool completely. The top of each cake will have formed a slight crunch because of the bicarbonate of soda. You can very carefully slice this off if you don't want crunchy bits in your cake but I leave it as it's insanely delicious.
Place on cake on a plate or cake tray and add as much buttercream as you think you'll need. Now double that amount. Seriously. Double it. Add the second cake on top. At this stage, your ganache should have thickened enough for you to spread it on the top and sides of the take with a knife. If it's still a little runny, you can put it into the fridge for an hour.

Decorating the cake is up to you. I like to use the ganache as a chocolate glue to stick a fortress of chocolate fingers to the side and M&Ms on top.

See Garth? See what you're missing in Dublin?