Black Forest Cake

For the next few weeks I am going to do a mini theme; that theme is cake! Who doesn’t love cake? Over the Summer and time at home, I have been trying out cakes that I haven’t had time for before. One of my absolute favorites is Black Forest Cake. I love the whipped cream mixed with the dark chocolate cake. I’ve never had the time to make one before so I thought I would give is a try. Here we go…

Make sure you have time to do this as there are lots of steps.

You will need…

Filling

2 cups of canned cherry filling

Whipped Cream:

¼ cup of sugar

1tbsp. of cornstarch

3 cups of heavy cream

1 ½ tsp. of vanilla extract

Cake:

I used my go to chocolate devil’s food cake recipe for this…

½ cups of cocoa powder

1 ½ cups of boiling hot water

1 tsp. of baking soda

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. of salt

1 ½ cups of flour

½ heaping cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 tsp. of instant coffee

10 tbsp. of softened butter

1 ½ cups of brown sugar

3 eggs

½ cup of sour cream

1 tsp. of vanilla

Butter and powder with cocoa powder, two 9 inch cake pans and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all of your dry ingredients in one bowl.

Then in a glass measuring cup, add in the boiling hot water, chocolate chips, instant coffee, and cocoa powder and stir until all is melted and dissolved.

In your mixer's bowl, cream the butter and then add the sugar until fluffy. Slowly add in the eggs one at a time. Then add in the sour cream and vanilla and beat until it is all incorporated.

Now on low, add in a third of your flour mix, then half of the chocolate repeat until all is added. Give it a final stir at the end to make sure everything is mixed in.

Divide evenly into the cake pans and bake for about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

For this cake, I needed three layers so what I did since I only had two pans was pre divide the batter three ways and then I baked the first two. After they came out I washed the pan and re-powdered and buttered and lined it and baked the  third layer. They will be a bit thinner than your regular cake but put together it will look like a big layer cake.

Now back to the Black Forest Cake.

So after baking the cakes and letting them cool completely, I started on the rest of the cake elements.

You can be super elaborate with your filling. I wanted to keep it simple so I bought a can of cherry pie filling and I strained the cherry goo from the cherries. I had a measuring cup of cherry syrupy goo and then a bowl full of mashed cherries with a little bit of syrup on them.

On all of the layers of the chocolate cakes, I poked some holes (not all the way through) with chopsticks and I brushed on some of that cherry goo and I really saturated the layer especially the middle and bottom ones. Let those sit.

For the whipping cream, I whisked the sugar and the cornstarch together in a small saucepan and then I whisked in ½ cup of cream. Bring to a simmer whisking it constantly. Once it thickens take the mixture off the burned and allow it to cool about 30 minutes.

                                     

While that is finishing cooling, whip 2 ½ cups of cream and vanilla on low speed until frothy looking. Then increase the speed and whip this mixture until it starts to thicken. Now slowly add in the cooled cornstarch mixture until soft peaks begin to form.

                                     

Now to assemble the cake. This can be a bit messy. On your plate or platter, place on of your layers of cake down. Spread ½ cup of the whipped cream on it and then on top of that spoon half of the mashed cherries. Now place another layer of the cake on top of that one and repeat the same process but use up all of the cherries.

               

Once all of your layers are on, use the rest of the whipped cream to “ice” your cake. You can shave some chocolate or what I did was melt semi-sweet chocolate chips the day before and cut it up into little bits and put them all over the side of the cake.

Top the cake with some more of the chocolate, I made a little circular mound (about 6-8 around the cake) and then topped that with a maraschino cherry.

 Slice and serve. You want to eat this sooner rather than later so the whipped cream doesn’t lose it’s stiffness.