ULTIMATE Christmas tree cake (VIDEO)

Place Callebaut WhiteChocolate (callets) into a bowl or alternatively chop your chosen high quality white chocolate into small pieces and place them into a bowl

Pour 100% pistachio paste on top

Soak gelatin sheets into cold water.

Heat 500g cream (2cups) until simmering, mix gelatin sheets in, and pour it over the chocolate & pistachio paste mixture

Let the chocolate cream mixture set for a minute until chocolate gently melts then stir together or hand blend.

Once mixture slightly cools to room temperature, stir in the rest of the cream, pour the mixture into a shallow container and cover the top of the ganache with plastic wrap. Refrigerate it for minimum 4 hours.

The mixture should thicken after 4 hours and can be whipped into a pipeable, fluffy consistency in a Stand mixer , or use your electric hand mixer. The key is that once it is reached a fluffy consistency (1-2min), make sure you do not over whip the ganache as it can break. Whipped ganache should be stored in the fridge before using it or best if you use it immediately

Heat oven to 180 C / 356°F

Prepare 4 15 cm (6 inch) round cake pan with parchment paper

With an Electric hand mixer beat together the wet ingredients for 1-2 minutes: room temperature egg, oil, sugar, coffee and milk

Sift dry ingredients; flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, salt

Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients then fold just until combined

Divide batter equally into 4 cake pans with the help of a Digital scale

Bake for 25-30 min or until skewer inserted in the middle of the cakes comes out clean

Cool the chocolate sponges on Cooling rack. Chill them in the fridge before trimming them

Pour the cream into a small pan and place it over medium heat. As soon as it start simmering (before boiling) remove from heat

Pour warm cream over chocolate, stir until combined, then add butter and salt, and continue stirring until smooth, for a few more seconds

Pour the ganache into a shallow container and cover the top of the ganache with plastic wrap. Refrigerate it for a minimum of 1 hour, or until sets.

Start with trimming your chilled chocolate cakes: you will need 6 layers:  1st layer: 6inches / 15cm - this will be one of the sponges as it is 2nd layer: 5 inches / 12.5cm -this will be trimmed3rd layer: 4 inches / 10cm - this will be trimmed, keep the leftover for the 6th layerNow you have 1 sponge left and you will need to cut 2 layers out of this. The 4th layer is 3inches / 7.5cm. The 5th layer 2inches / 5cm. Use a cookie cutterThe 6th layer will be a very small 1 inch / 2.5cm that you can cut out from the one that you have left from the 3rd layer

Start layering the cake from bottom to top and fill each layer with chocolate ganache.

After the last layer is on top, you might want to consider inserting a long food safe skewer top to bottom that helps to stabilize the cake but it is not strictly necessary

Chill the cake either 1h in the fridge or 15min in the freezer

Divide the pistachio whipped ganache frosting into 2 - about 60%-40% so one of the batches should be a bit more than the other. The smaller batch will be used to frost around the cake as a first layer, and the larger batch will then be piped on top to make the Christmas tree design

Frost the cake with the smaller batch of cream. You can pipe the cream around the cake first, then smooth it with an offset spatula.

Chill the cake again either 1h in the fridge or 15min in the freezer before proceeding with piping

Move the remaining (larger batch) pistachio whipped ganache into a piping bag fitter with a star nozzle tip, and start piping around the cake starting from the bottom all around moving towards the top.

Chill the cake again before proceeding with decoration

Use sprinkles of you choice and finally, place either a homemade or store bough edible star on top