White cake filled and covered in ganache. As known as all-around cake.

(Em português)

I got this recipe from my friend Catharina, because she once prepared it and the cake was extremely soft and fluffy and great. I don't know were she originally got it, though.

Anyway, it's been my go-to white cake recipe since then.

Every time I have baked it, I filled covered the cake in dark chocolate ganache.

In one of such times, I also threw in pieces of banana. I'll tell you: this cake can't fail.

For the cake:

320g (2 1/4 cups) all purpose flour

150g (3/4 cup) sugar

265ml (1 cup + 2 tablespoons) cream

65ml (4 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon) sunflower oil

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 teaspoons baking powder
(Cup measure: 240ml)

I sifted together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl, and in another bowl I mixed the wet ones.
Carefully, I mixed them all with a wooden spoon until smooth.
It's quite a heavy dough, unlike most cake batter that tend to be more liquidy.
I greased and floured a round 20cm pan and transferred the dough into it.
With the back of a wet tablespoon I straightened the dough, to make it even.
I baked it in preheated oven at 180oC until the toothpick test came right. It took about 45 minutes.

When taking the cake out of the oven, I let it cool for 5 minutes inside the pan, then I transferred it to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Then, I cut the cake in half to fill it. That's how I did it:
using a knife, I made a superficial slash horizontally in the cake to mark the middle of it's height. 
Then, I rolled a string of twine in my fingers - enough to go around the cake - as I would roll dental floss. I placed the twine in the slash I'd done before, and carefully pulled it, until I went through all the cake, cutting it.
So I separated the halves, placing the bottom one in the serving plate, and the upper one in a dish.


After that, the ganache:

120g dark chocolate finely chopped

135g cream (the remainder of the can used in the cake dough)

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

I placed 2/3 of the chocolate to melt in bain-marie, in the mildest heat, and when this quantity became liquid, I added the remaining chocolate and stirred to melt the pieces. Next, I took it away from the heat, added the cream and sugar and whisked with a fouet to incorporate everything.
I let it rest for two minutes, whisked again, and repeated it all a couple times until the ganache was only luke-warm and starting to look more creamy than liquidy.
So I poured half of it over the bottom cake half, spreaded to make it even, topped with the other half of cake, poured the remaining ganache and spreaded it on all of the cake surface, including the sides, using a flat-bladed knife to help me make it smooth.
As you can see in the pictures, each time the decoration comes different. Colorful sprinkles, almonds, flowers... there's a thousand possibilities.

In the first picture, the ganache layer was thicker, so it looked glossy and it didn't dry.
Besides, I served that cake less than one hour after it was done.
In the second picture, the ganache layer was thinner, so I got a different effect. Plus, I served the cake about 6 hours after getting it ready, which means there was time for it to dry.

Serves 12 people.