Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake - Take 2

I had originally made this cake in April for our monthly office birthday party.  It turned out pretty good - had a very rich flavor to it, but I just wasn't too happy with the appearance of it.  Looking at the pictures - it developed a slight bulge around the top edge to it.  OK - but I wanted a more streamlined look to it.  So - since my boss fell in love with this cake (she lives for chocolate covered cherries) I decided to fulfill her request and do this cake again for September.  With a few changes.

This cake is a basic 10" white cake.  The first layer is trimmed, frosted with buttercream and then covered with approximately 3 boxes of chocolate covered cherries.  Which, by the way, are VERY difficult to find in the stores in September.  Who knew they were a seasonal item  - mainly for Valentine's Day and Christmas!  In the future, my friend Carli very graciously shared with me her recipe for chocolate covered cherries, so I can make this cake any time of year! 

Once I put the cherries on the cake, I frosted them with buttercream.  Basically making a 2nd layer of the cake.  Level the next layer of cake and add to the stack.  Crumb coat the entire thing with buttercream.  Then I stuck it in the fridge to chill while I got the chocolate ganache ready and crushed my Oreo's. 

Chilling the cake seemed to help the ganache to stick to it.  Last time I didn't use any ganache and had major difficulties getting the cookies to stick to the buttercream.  I just smooshed the cookies onto the ganache and then put it back in the fridge again to chill.  At this point, it was already smoother than the first cake, but I wanted to try making sure it had no bulges at all.  Once I had chilled it (for about an hour) I used a piece of wax paper and my fondant smoother on it.  It turned out beautiful and I loved that you couldn't see any white underneath the cookies. 

Pipe a few rosettes on the top with buttercream, top with maraschino cherries and a cookie and voila!  Everyone at work liked it better than the original - thought the ganache added an extra richness to the cake.