Black Forest Cake

moist layered cake with whipped cream & cherry filling

Ingredients

For base cake:

• 2 cups flour/maida
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs or 1.5 cup curd(for eggless version)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tbsp coffee powder (mixed with 2 tbsp hot water)

For cheery syrup & mixture:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup fresh cherries
• 1 tbsp corn flour

For frosting & decoration:

• 1 cup whipped cream
• 1/2 cup chocolate (to make chocolate curls)
• Few cherries

Recipe

• Firstly, to make the cake base, sift all the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt) in a large bowl. Then mix the wet ingredients(sugar, oil, curd/eggs, milk, vanilla essence, coffee) with the dry ones.
• Put this to bake in a pre-heated oven at 180˚C for about 25–30 mins. Once baked, set aside to let it cool.
• Now, using cherries, we will make two things — cherry syrup to spread between layers & a thick cherry mixture to fill in between layers in the cake.
• For cherry syrup, take a pan & add around 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup sugar & 1/2 cup cherries. Bring this to a boil. Then, strain this mixture & your cherry syrup is ready.
• Now, in the same pan, take these boiled cherries, add another fresh 1/2 cup cherries followed by 1/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup water, corn flour.
• Cook this till it becomes a thick jam sort of mixture & then let it cool.
• Now, for frosting, take whipping cream and beat it till stiff peaks appear.
• For chocolate curls, take a chocolate bar (at room temperature) and using a peeler, peel long strands of chocolate which will be used for decoration.
• Finally, for the assembly part: cut your cake into 2 halves.
• Take the first layer, spread cherry syrup on top. Now, make a round layer on the circumference of the cake on top with whipping cream (using a piping bag). This will make a border around where in between we can fill our cherry mixture. Spread the cherry thick jam mixture in between followed by some whipping cream on top .
• Take the second cake layer & repeat the above step.
• Fill up the cake with whipping cream on sides and top.
• Decorate the cake with whipping cream swirls on top with a piping bag.
• Using hands, put the chocolate curls on sides & in the center of the cake with cherries on top.

Tips

• Ensure all wet ingredients for cake are at room temperature.
• Whipping cream needs to be cool while you beat it. If you are using a non-dairy whipping cream, you need not add sugar when you beat; however for a dairy whipping cream, add some sugar and then beat it.
• In case you will to bake an eggless version, use curd instead of eggs with the same recipe.
• Freeze the cake preferably for 4–6 hours before serving.