Black Forest Cake

Black Forest Cake


It was a special person’s (actually two of them) birthday and every year I would make a gift for them. This year however, circumstances did not allow me to find the energy and time to make a gift. For time being, a handmade cake was going to be it. However, I did take a lot of effort and care to make the cake and decorate it as well. I am not usually a frosting or cake decoration person because we do not usually like cakes loaded with sugar and cream. As the occasion was special, I chose to make a special cake. I chose a black forest cake, eggless though and had to make couple of substitutes. Usually it is made with dark chocolate and cherries. My wee one picked up couple of milk chocolates for baking and insisted we buy them so had to use those up. Not complaining because it was a good brand of chocolate at very little price. I had no cherries on stock as it is not a fruit we normally buy and substituted it with strawberries. I used evaporated milk instead of plain milk as it has about 605 of the water content evaporated and is thicker than regular milk. This makes teh cake taste slightly richer. Usually the whipped cream is sweetened with couple of spoons of sugar spread between layers of the cake. I chose to spread a layer of cream as well as melted chocolate to suit our preference. I also did not add sugar to the whipped cream, you could if you like but be gentle while mixing. The cake was a instant hit and am super chuffed with the result!

2 cups all purpose flour
4 tablespoon cornflour (refer notes below)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoon vinegar
8 teaspoons coco powder
1 cup caster sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
100g butter, melted
1 can evaporated milk
6-8 tablespoon water

Decoration and assembly
1 tub whipped cream
1 pack of chocolate, grated
½ pack chocolate (about 75g)
2 tablespoon milk
Few strawberries or rasberries or cherries

Sift together the flour and cornflour atleast twice. Then add baking powder, baking soda, coco powder and sift well so the flour mixture is aerated

In a separate bowl, bring together the sugar (caster and brown) and melted butter until combined

Add the evaporated milk and blend together

Gradually add the flour mixture until just combined. Add vinegar and mix briefly

Transfer to lined cake tin, tap gently about ten times to release excess bubbles and bake in preheated oven at 180degC for 30-40 minutes. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. I rested the cake in the oven for further 10 minutes with oven turned off. Then cool outside for five minutes before transferring to cooling rack

Start the decoration only after cooling the cake completely. Slice the cake into two halves

Melt the half pack of chocolate along with couple of tablespoon milk in a double boiler

Spread this on the bottom part of the cake. Allow to cool

Take some whipped cream and spread on the chocolate already spread

Place the top part of the cake and spread whipped cream on the sides of the cake

Spread whipped cream on the top of the cake. Also put some whipped cream in a piping bag and make your own designs. Cover the cake with grated chocolate and cherries/strawberries/raspberries

Notes:

I chose to use my own cake flour, which is for every cup of all purpose flour, remove two tablespoons of flour and replace with cornflour. If you chose not to do this, skip the cornflour in the recipe and use just 2 full cups of all purpose flour

Make sure you keep the cake, cream and chocolate in the fridge every now and then else the heat could disrupt the workability

You will have to store the cake in the fridge as it is decorated with cream

For ease, I bought readymade whipped cream instead of buying heavy cream and whipping it myself