Chocolate Gingerbread Petit Fours with Blackberry Buttercream

With Holidays approaching I am more and more in the mood of winter favorite flavours. Since we came back from the Netherlands last month my kids keep asking me for some "pepernoten" and "spekulaas" cookies, as there were already plenty of such in the shops. Here in Istanbul there is not even a hint of winter yet:)
Well, I decided to spare the cookies for December and to spoil them a little with these flavours but in another form of sweets. I made this tasty gingerbread cake using this recipe. Then I cut the cake into squares, filled each with blackberry buttercream and frosted them with chocolate. That was a lot of chocolate!
Making these petit fours was a lot of fun, not tiring at all, just make sure you've got plenty of chocolate at hand and try to cut the cake really carefully, so that it does not crumble too much.

Gingerbread Cake
2 cups flour
10g baking powder
pinch of salt
1 full t.s. cinnamon
1 t.s. powdered ginger
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
200ml milk
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup molasses
Mix dry ingredients together. In a standing mixer combine butter and sugar and beat until fluffier. Then add eggs, molasses, lemon zest. Now add dry ingredients and milk and beat until combined.
Grease 22cm square baking form and sprinkle with flour. Pour the batter into it and bake at 175C for about 35 minutes, until done. Let it cool completely. Cut the cake into 24 pieces. Get rid of any sticking crumbs.

Blackberry Buttercream
app. 5-6 tb.s. blackberry jam, blended with hand blender
app. 130g soft butter
pinch of salt
100-150g powdered sugar
1tb.s. whipped cream
Beat butter, adding jam until fluffy, add sugar, salt and cream. Using piping bag pipe some cream into the cetre of each square. Freeze the cakes during 30 minutes or longer.
Melt around 300g dark chocolate with 2tb.s. vegetable oil. Using a teaspoon, cover every cake with chocolate and freeze these petit fours until the chocolate is set, 15 minutes. Pipe some remaining cream on top of each cake. They can be served:)