Chocolate Mint Aero Cake
This doesn't necessarily have to be a celebration cake. It was just the case for me as it was my boyfriend's birthday. He loved it, the guests enjoyed it and it looked rather pretty. Success!

Devils Food Cake
1 1/2 cups of Soft Brown Sugar
1/3 cup Cocoa
1 cup Milk
90gm Dark Chocolate
125gm Unsalted Butter
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence
2 Eggs, separated
1 1/2 Cups Plain Flour
1 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda.
Mint Buttercream
75gm Softened Butter
1 1/2 tsp Peppermint Essence
Green Food Colouring
Enough sifted icing sugar to enable a nice thick buttercream
Chocolate Ganache
170gm Dark Chocolate
185ml Double Cream
Mint Leaves
70gm Melted Dark Chocolate
A Bunch of Fresh Mint Leaves
1 Large Block of Mint Aero

Step One - Devils Food Cake
Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
Grease and line two 20cm tins.  
Combine 1/3 of sugar with cocoa and milk in saucepan.
Stir until sugar dissolved.
Remove from heat and add broken chocolate until it add has melted in.
Cool
Cream the remaining sugar and butter until lovely and fluffy.
Add vanilla essence, the egg yolks and that delicious dark chocolate mixture.
Add sifted flour and other dry ingredients.
Beat the egg whites until stiff. Using all of your gentle powers, slowly fold in the egg whites into the cake mixture. As soon as all the little white flecks have completely disappeared, pour the mixture evenly between your cake tins.
Bake for 35 mins or until they are firm to touch. Cool before removing from tins.

Step Two - Ganache
Add the cream to a saucepan and over med heat bring to boil. Then remove from heat and add chocolate, stir until beautifully glossy and smooth. Put aside until it cools and thickens. I needed to put mine in the freezer for awhile.

Step Three - Choc Mint Leaves
Using a paintbrush coat the underside of 1 leaf with a thick layer of chocolate. Drap the leaf, chocolate side up, over a skewer (or wooden spoon handle) on a parchment lined with baking paper. Repeat over as many leaves as you require and refrigerate for about 10mins or until set.

Once set: Remove the leaves with tweezers so you have a single chocolate leaf remaining. (see bottom of page for photos of the process).

Step Four - Mint Buttercream
Add the softened butter and enough sifted icing sugar until it reaches the desired thick and creamy constancy. Add the peppermint essence, tailor it to
suit your taste buds. Finally, colour it with green food colouring. Gradually drop it in until you get a lovely pastel green shade.

Step Five - Build the Cake
Once ready spread all of the buttercream on the first layer of chocolate cake, place the second layer on top. Place the mint aero chocolate bar in a clean plastic bag and roughly crush with a rolling pin or something equally as strong.

Cover the top layer of the cake with the chocolate ganache (just the top not the sides) and sprinkle the crushed aero around the top border of the cake. Finish it off with placing the chocolate mint leaves in the centre of the cake.

Now the result should be a tower of mint flavoured chocolate delight.
Now Martha Stewart's recipe shows you how these should look http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/chocolate-mint-leaves. However, I don't think I put a thick enough layer of chocolate on the leaves
and I really struggled to remove the leaves from the chocolate. So I still put them on the cake but left the leave intact. I'm unsure if people actually ate them...but I decorated the cake with them anyway