Chocolate cake with secret filling

I made this cake for my friend's birthday. Really I just wanted to try if I can create the secret filling effect or not, without the special tin. Clearly you don't need the tin as it is quite easy to do without it.

Chocolate cake with apricot and curd cheese filling

For the cake

175 g unsalted butter, softened

125 g soft light brown sugar

100 g caster sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

1 vanilla pod

175 g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

50 g cocoa

75 ml buttermilk

75 ml boiling water

For the filling

150 g Curd Cheese/ Quark * more on this at the Tricks and Recommendations

1 vanilla pod

1 tinned apricot

150 ml double cream 

2 tbsp icing sugar

For the chocolate genache

125 ml double cream 

100 g dark chocolate (at least 60% cocoa solids)

15 g liquid glucose

25 g unsalted butter 

30 g dark chocolate for the shavings

For the sponge: preheat your oven to 180C.

Cream the butter with both of the sugars until pale and light. Gradually add the beaten eggs, mixing well between each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl from time to time.

Add the vanilla seeds.

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa into the mixture and mix until almost combined. Add the buttermilk and boiling water and continue to mix until smooth.

Divide the mixture between 2X20cm sandwich tins. Bake on the middle shelf of your reheated oven for about 20 minutes or until well risen and a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Leave the cakes to rest in the ins for 2 minutes and then ease out and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

For the filling whip the double cream to soft peaks, add the curd cheese, icing sugar and vanilla seeds and mix it again.

1 cm form the rim of the cake (all around) make a 1 cm deep cut. Spoon out the excess middle part of the sponge, where the filling will go ( you can eat it with some extra filling if you have some leftovers:)). Spread the curd cheese filling to both hollow part until almost level. Add a layer of apricot to the bottom layer, then sandwich with the top layer.

For the ganache: Bring to boil the cream in a heavy based pan over medium heat. Take off the heat and add the chocolate and the liquid glucose and mix with a whisk to smooth cream. Add the butter gradually to the cream while whisking.

Pour the ganache on top of the cake and with a spatula spread it over the top and side of the cake.

For the top decoration either use a vegetable peeler to make shavings from a chocolate, scatter on top of the cake

or

if you want the long shavings as I did:

Melt the chocolate over boiling water in a a bowl. When it is melted, spread on a flat surface(ideally marble......jeah I know) or kitchen worktop, or any flat surface by a spatula in thin layer. Leave the chocolate to completely cool down and harden.

Ideally you would transfer your chocolate to the freezer for a few minutes to chill, unless you spread it on your work surface like me. When the chocolate is solid, using a long sharp knife start scraping the chocolate, placing the knife at an angle to the chocolate surface. Place the shavings on top of the cake and chill for a couple of hours.