Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

This cake has been floating around the Portland area for a long time. It comes from Criollo, a now defunct bakery in the Portland area that happens to have spawned every other bakery in PDX. It's a very moist and delicious cake that has a dark chocolate flavor, enhanced by the strong coffee. The use of oil allows the cake to stay moist over the course of the week. This is good, because who can eat a whole chocolate cake otherwise? I'm taking it to a birthday party for our friend Lindsay, the zoology grad student girlfriend of one of my cooks. Here's the recipe:

3 cups unbleached AP flour
2.5 cups sugar (vanilla sugar is even better)
5.5 teaspoons baking soda (1 Tbl + 1.5 tsp)
1.5 tsp salt
1 cup unsweetened chocolate powder

Preheat your oven to 350. Combine all these in a bowl by sifting them together. If you have a kitchenade or similar mixer, affix the wire whip attachment and work these dry ingredients together on the lowest speed. Allow it to aerate for 5 minutes. Then start adding the wet stuff

1.5 cups buttermilk
1.33 cups canola oil

Add these to the dry stuff slowly until it is incorporated.

3 large eggs

Add these one at a time, waiting for each to be incorporated before adding the next

1.5 cups fresh brewed, strong hot coffee
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Add the coffee in a slow stream. This is a half-assed attempt at tempering. Remember that there are uncooked egg proteins in the batter, and pouring a lot of very hot coffee will cause them to coagulate. Add the vanilla when you feel like it. Now, the batter will look like soup, until the flour has a chance to soak up the water in the coffee, so give it a good five minutes on the lowest speed. PS, there is no need to every go above "stir" on your Kitchenade. All you will do is build gluten, add unneeded air, and spackle your entire counter top with cake batter. Bake in two buttered and floured 9 inch cake round for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick comes clean out the center. let rest for 20 minutes before frosting, glazing or ganaching.

So I iced my cake with a simple, low fat ganache. I used:
.5 cup of fat free milk
1lb of semi sweet chocolate chips
1 T of butter (I know)
1/4 cup of sugar

Place all this in a metal bowl, and melt it over a double boiler. Stir with a wisk until smooth. Then ice that soulja boy!

That's my cake. I ended up baking mine in pie tins, for a bit of shape, instead of plain round. Also, I guess I lost my cake rounds. I also added a strawberry-balsamic compote a around the bottom. Thoughts?