High Altitude Chocolate Cake.

 If you live at high altitude many from scratch cakes will over expand and fall.  The decreased pressure in the atmosphere allows the gas produced by the leavening products to expand too much, the batter can no longer hold itself up with all that air and it falls! It's terrible.  To help with this you need to decrease sugar and butter which will make your batter softer, increase flour, and decrease leavening agents.  I have also heard to throw in one extra egg.  You can also increase the temperature to make it so the cake sets before the bubbles are allowed to expand to much... but doing this take a lot of experimenting or math -  and good luck finding a formula that is good for your specific area... and if you get it... Good luck with the math!!

This is the chocolate cake recipe that I use - It doesn't get a hard crust like a lot of cakes I have made from scratch, keeps a fine crumb, and is nice and moist! It also isn't too sweet - Just really really chocolately! Compared to a lot of cakes I have made it is lower in fat.

• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1-3/4 cups and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa or HERSHEY'S SPECIAL DARK Cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup and 1 Tablespoons of milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water                                                 1 teaspoon rum extract                                                 

Directions

Heat oven to 375°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round pans. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of electric mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes for round pans or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely before frosting. 

For this cake I filled the center with buttercream frosting and then covered it was ganache.  I added the blueberries to look pretty, but you could use any type of berry or decoration you wanted. 

To get this look I put wax paper on all sides of the cake so it wouldn't dirty the disk it was on.  I frosted it with buttercream then covered it with a firmer ganache.  As the ganache cooled I pulled it up from the bottom with my frosting spatula to make those lines and ran my frosting spatula back and forth across the top.  I used the blueberries to the cover where I had pushed the ganache up and there was a little lip. I just went with what was kind of happening at the time, I didn't plan anything. 

To make a buttercream frosting:
Beat 1 cup of butter that is at room temperature until fluffy.
Add the desired amount of cocoa powder until it is just a tad darker than you want it to turn out
Add your flavorings - Vanilla, Almond, Orange, Rum, or whatever you like!
Add powdered sugar a little at a time so it is still spreadable but firm enough to work with.
If you frosting is bitter thin it with a couple tablespoons of milk and then add more powder sugar until it is sweet enough for you.

To make a ganache:
Create a double boiler by getting a small sauce pan and a metal bowl that will cover the top of the pan, it should just set on the pan, not go inside.
Put an inch or two of water on the bottom of the pan.
Heat the water in the pan until it is just steaming and maybe simmering but not boiling.
Place the metal bowl on top of the pan and add some chocolate that has either been chopped, comes in equal squares or you could also use chocolate chips (I do because it is cheaper than the good chocolate and I am poor but it is not as good of an option)
The chocolate will slowly melt, you must constantly stir it to keep it from burning. (I would take pictures but my hands are busy the whole time, maybe someday someone can take them for me)
Remove the chocolate the moment it is melted.
Slowly add some heavy whipping cream stirring quickly with a whisk while the chocolate is still warm.
The amount you add will depend on how thick or thin you want your ganache to be.  If you want it thick and to act as a frosting - Just add a little bit.  If you want it thin and you want it to drizzle over the side of your cake  in droplets then add more.