Eggless Chocolate Cake with Strawberry and Cream Filling

It's been a year since I started blogging and I made this Chocolate cake layered with strawberry and cream which I had bookmarked from here for my blog's First Anniversary.
I would like to thank everyone my followers,friends,relatives who have visited my space and encouraged me in this journey.Its your feedback that keeps me motivated.I halved the ingredients from the original recipe and made a small cake.I also made few changes to suit my taste.The cake came out so soft and moist and the strawberry and cream paired well with the chocolate cake.

Ingredients:

For the Chocolate Cake
All purpose flour	1 ½ cups
Powdered sugar	1 cup
Cocoa Powder(Natural Unsweetened)	¼ cup
Baking soda	1 tsp
Salt	½ tsp
Hot water	1 cup
White vinegar	1 tblsp
Oil(I used sunflower oil)	¼ cup+ 3 tblsp
Vanilla essence	½ tblsp
For the strawberry cream
Strawberries chopped	100 gms
Sugar	2 tblsp
Vanilla essence	½ tsp
Heavy whipping cream	150 ml
Icing sugar	2 tblsp
For the Chocolate ganache
Dark chocolate	100 gms
Heavy whipping cream	75 ml
Chocolate shavings	For decoration

Method:

• Sift Flour,Cocoa,Baking soda and salt and transfer to a bowl.Mix the sugar and keep aside.
• Preheat Oven to 180 º C.
• Mix Oil,Vanilla essence,vinegar and hot water in a bowl.Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix till it is just combined.A few lumps are ok and don't over beat it.
• Transfer the mixture to a greased and floured cake pan and bake at 180 º C for about 40- 50 mins till a tooth pick inserted comes out clean.
• Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool for 10 mins.Gently remove the cake and keep it upside down on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

For the Strawberry cream:

• Take a saucepan and add the strawberry pieces,sugar and let it simmer for few minutes till it reaches jam like consistency.Add the vanilla essence and cool completely.
• Whip the fresh cream and once it starts thickening add icing sugar and few drops of vanilla and beat till stiff peaks form.Now gently mix the cooled strawberry mixture to the whipped cream.
• Refrigerate till assembling the cake.

For the Chocolate ganache:

• Heat the cream in a sauce pan and once bubbles start appearing on the sides take it off the flame and add the chopped dark chocolate.
• After 2-3 mins, stir the chocolate with the cream till it becomes a thick mixture.You can add 1 tblsp butter for a shiny ganache.
• Refrigerate till it becomes thick enough to spread as icing.

Assembling the cake:

• Cut the cake into 3 layers horizontally using a long serrated knife.
• Prepare sugar syrup by taking 1/4 cup water and 2 tblsp sugar in a vessel.Stir till sugar dissolves completely and boil for few minutes.Cool completely.
• Place a layer of the cake and sprinkle little sugar syrup all over the top.Spread a thick layer of the prepared strawberry cream.Cover it with second layer of cake.Sprinkle sugar syrup over this layer and spread the remaining strawberry cream.Cover with the third layer.Wet this layer with sugar syrup.Finally spread the chocolate ganache on the top and sides of the entire cake.I added some chocolate shavings over the top.Refrigerate for 3-4 hours before serving.

Note:

• The sugar syrup was not used in the original recipe but I have used it here to keep it moist.Don't add more syrup as it will make the cake soggy.