Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte/Black Forest Cake

Amidst all the craze and hurry to get everything done before I leave for Food Blogger Connect 2010 , I managed to make this gorgeously moist cake for my dear friend Neelu's birthday. When I return I will share the recipe!

As promised here is the recipe for Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte/Black Forest Cake. I have made this twice already. It is simply that good. After hunting for a perfect chocolate sponge to make this cake, I liked the recipe below...it uses oil instead of butter and makes a very moist cake that is perfect for black forest. Do brush the cakes liberally with kirsch. I   got the idea of chocolate trees & leaves from a TV show where the guy also made some chocolate mushrooms & roses...I could just about manage to make trees & leaves.

Ingredients

For the cake (recipe adapted from Annie Bell)

Makes 2 8inch sandwich cakes (I used 11/2 of the cake recipe to make 3 even sandwich layers)

38g Cocoa

less than 1/2 tsp Baking soda

2 Large Eggs

185g Light Muscovado Sugar

90ml Oil

100g Self-Raising Flour

100ml freshly brewed Coffee or Hot Water

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line 2 8inch sandwich tins with parchment paper. Whisk the cocoa with 100ml coffee or boiling water, whisk in the soda and leave to cool. Whisk together the eggs and sugar till light and fluffy and blend in the oil. Sift the flour into this and then the cocoa solution. Gently fold to incorporate everything. Pour into prepared tins and bake for 20-25 min or until skewer inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool and turn into a cooling rack and let it cool completely.

For the Cherry filling:

1 cup cherries in Kirsch chopped

1 cup chilled heavy Cream

1 tbsp Kirsch+ extra to drizzle on cake (You could use the cherry syrup if you want to skip alcohol)

2 tbsp Icing sugar

Method:

Whip the heavy cream along with icing sugar till peaks form and blend in the chopped cherries and kirsch. Keep this chilled until ready to use.

For the Icing

1 cup chilled heavy cream

1 cup grated chocolate or chocolate flakes

1/4 cup Icing sugar (or more if you like it sweet)

Method:

Whip the heavy cream along with sugar until stiff peaks form taking care not to overdo it (you will end up with lumpy butter).

Assembly of Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte/Black Forest Cake

Place the cooled cake on a cake stand or board & place small strips of parchment paper all over the sides. Brush the top with a little kirsch or cherry syrup. Spread the cherry icing on top and place the 2nd cake. Brush the top with a little kirsch or cherry syrup.(I used 11/2 of the cake recipe to make 3 even sandwich layers).Top the 2nd layer with some cherry icing and place the 3rd cake on top. Brush the top with a little kirsch or cherry syrup and press the layers down gently. Frost the top and sides of the cake with the white cream icing evenly. Put some dark chocolate pieces in a food processor and pulse until you get shavings small enough to cover the cake. I tried dusting the cake with the shavings using my hand but it all got messy as the chocolate melted. So instead I used the spatula to pick up the chocolate shavings and pressed it slightly on the icing taking care not to mess the icing. Since the icing was at room temperature this was easy to do and the shavings stuck to the icing. Pour some white icing into a pastry bag and pipe the icing on top of the cake and decorate with some cherries. Gently pull out the parchment paper and you will have a neat cake every time.