I love birthdays! I always did, but for some time I have a new reason to love them: the best occasion for inventing special sweet gifts and for baking them.
Today it was my bosses birthday (he is more a friend than a boss) and of course the special cake project had to happen.
This time it was not a hard choice: a strong cake for a strong man. What could be stronger than a mix of chocolate, Matcha and Earl Grey. This combination is a knockout. I loved every minute of making it and spent quite some time just staring at it (I am not insane, or at least I don’t know I am).

For the cake layers
I doubled this recipe and baked it in 4 24 cm pans lined with parchment paper.

For the syrup
240 ml water
8 g Earl Grey leaves
100-150 g sugar depending on your taste

Bring water to a boil. Off heat, add the tea leaves, cover and let sit for ten minutes. Drain, add the sugar, boil again to dissolve the sugar.

For the chocolate caramel ganache
240 ml heavy cream
10 caramels (about 100 g and preferably home made)
280 g bitter sweet chocolate

Bring the cream and caramels to a boil making sure the caramels melt. Add this mixture to the chopped chocolate. Let sit for a few minutes and then stir to obtain a smooth ganache. Set aside.

For the matcha mousse

I tripled the mousse and added 30 g matcha powder (you can use more or less depending on how strong you like it).

To assemble

Place one cake layer, brush with syrup, spread 1/4 of ganache and then 1/4 of the mousse. Continue with all cake layers and finish the top as every layer.

Prepare a strip of parchment paper having the length and height of your cake. Temper 200-300 g bitter sweet chocolate (you can use any temper method you are used to). Spread a thin layer of chocolate on your paper and coat the cake with it. Place in the fridge to set and then take off the paper.

For the top I used crashed macaron shells (I suffered a bit when crushing them). For chocolate macarons I replaced 15 g of powdered sugar with cocoa powder. For the matcha macarons, I added 1 tsp of matcha powder to the nut sugar mixture.

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