Black forest cake (Serves 10)

 

Once tasted, this delicious super soft cake will be everybody's favorite. We adapted the following recipe from Mishmash (Shn), a fellow blogger with our own slight variations. She is an excellent cook and her dedication and perfection in creating a dish is commendable. This is our second attempt in making this cake and we used fresh cherries earlier, but now as cherries are not in season we had no other choice, and ended up using bottled cherries. Enjoy!!!!!!

For two 9’chocolate cake layers

Cake flour ¾ cup (we used swan’s brand)
Cocoa powder ¼ cup
Instant coffee powder 1 tsp
Salt a pinch
Eggs (yolks and whites separate ) 6 nos (room temperature)
Sugar 1 cup
Vanilla extract 1 tsp

Preparing the cakes

Preheat the oven with rack in the middle at 350 F. Cut the parchment paper to the size that fits to the bottom of each cake pan and stick it with a little butter. Butter the sides of the pan and dust with little cocoa powder. Keep the prepared pans aside.

In a bowl, mix together cake flour, cocoa powder, salt and coffee powder. Sift this at least twice which helps in aerating the flour.

In another bowl, beat together egg yolks and half cup sugar at a medium speed until you get a smooth, thickened pale yellow color. Scrape the sides of the bowl in between and add vanilla extract and beat for 1 more minute. Set this aside.

In another mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy at a medium speed for 2 minutes. Now increase the speed to high and beat the whites for 3 more minutes until you get a shiny texture. Once this stage is attained, turn down the beater back to medium speed and add the rest of the sugar slowly and beat well until it forms firmer peaks.

Now add 1/3 of the egg whites to the yolk mixture and using a wooden spatula fold it in slowly until no white streaks are seen. Now add in rest of whites and repeat the same. We are now ready to add the dry ingredients. Fold in the flour mixture in 4 batches making sure you get a smooth mixture at the end.

Pour these into dusted cake pans in equal portions and bake this in the middle rack of the pre heated oven for 18-20 minutes. Insert a tooth pick and if it comes out clean, cake is perfectly done. Switch off the oven and remove the pan and let the cakes cool for 1 minute in the pan itself. Later remove the cakes off the pan to a wire rack and cool completely. The cake will be very soft in texture and will shrink down a little bit after cooling. Keep in mind the cakes should be completely cooled before applying the filling and frosting.

To make the cherry syrup

It is good to use fresh cherries for this recipe. As cherries are not in season we were forced to use bottled ones.

Cherries ½ cup, fresh or canned
Water ½ cup, if you are using bottled cherries use the syrup
Sugar ¼ cup
Imitation rum 1 tsp

In a small pan, mix together water/ cherry syrup and sugar, allow it to boil. Add the cherries and imitation rum. Cook this for 3 minutes and switch off the flame. Leave aside for 30 minutes covered. This helps the cherries to infuse their flavor into the liquid.

For frosting

Heavy whipping cream 3 cups
Powdered sugar 5 TBSP
Imitation rum 1 tsp

In a mixing bowl add the cream, sugar and imitation rum. Whip the cream using a beater at medium speed until soft, firm peaks are attained. Set this aside.

Final assembly of the cake

Place one of the cakes with flat side up onto a plate. Poke the entire cake using a fork and brush the cherry syrup evenly over the cake. Now spread about 1 ½ cups of the whipped cream evenly on the surface of the first cake. It is best to use a flat knife. Once you get an even layer place some cherries from the syrup to cover the frosting. Again apply a thin layer of whipped cream over the cherries. On top of this assemble the second cake flat side up. Poke with fork and brush with cherry syrup. Now spread the entire cake with rest of the whipped cream evenly on top and sides. Decorate the cake according to your choice and refrigerate minimum for 3 hours before serving.

Tips

We must say, one should have little patience to make this cake, but we guarantee your efforts will be worthwhile. It tasted heavenly..
Cake flour is available in all grocery stores, we used Swan’s brand
As mentioned earlier, fresh cherries works the best
Whip your own cream, store bought ones are not suitable for frosting cakes
Place pieces of parchment paper underneath the cake, which helps in maintaining a clean frosting. You can remove the paper once you are done
Thanks Shn (Mishmash) for this wonderful recipe...We loved it...