Black Forest Cake

This recipe is wayyyyyy over-due! That's what happens when I bake and cook a lot.. I tend to accumulate many recipes and not all of them make it here on this blog! XD Nevertheless, I'm proud to share this recipe I adapted from Richard Goh. 

I made 3 versions of this cake..

1) a huge Domo-Kun for Joey, my bf's bro's, for his 22nd birthday

2) A 8" one for the cell group and

3) 5 mini ones for the family as well as Richard!

This is one classic recipe and is favourited by many! I love how good the cherries taste in this cake in contrast with the chocolate sponge cake! As always, practice makes perfect.. this cake wasn't as pretty as my usual cakes cos' I placed so much focus on the Domo-Kun version instead. Nevertheless, the cake was still good.. still good.. I took about 2 hours to put this cake together. Once again, practice makes perfect.. If you're a beginner, it'll probably take you 3-4 hours, just like how my first attempt was (:

These were the mini ones that I baked too!

Black Forest Cake Recipe

This recipe yields a 9" round cake

Ingredients:

4 eggs (60g medium sized eggs)

100g fine sugar

90g plain flour

10g cocoa powder

85g melted butter

250g whipping cream

130g chocolate cream or 130g melted coverture chocolate, cooled

200g dark sweet pitted cherries

2 tsp rum

Some cocoa powder for dusting

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 160 degree Celsius. Melt the butter. I did this in 10 second intervals in the microwave oven on medium heat. Alternatively, you can double boil the butter to melt it.

The flour.

Add the cocoa powder.

Sift the combination.

The 4 eggs and sugar. Do whisk this mixture as soon as you crack the eggs so that the mixture is still fresh. Else, the cake may shrink a lil' after cooling. Don't ask me why.. it just happens! 

Whisk the sugar and eggs on high.

Continue whisking.

Whisk it till still peaks form.

If the mixture is able to 'stand' on it's own, it's ready.

Fold in the batter like this:

You should get a well-folded batter.

Line and grease the baking tin. Have this prepared before mixing the batter.

Pour the batter in. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or till skewer/toothpick comes out clean from the middle of the cake. 

Allow the cake to cool down before removing it from the pan. To prevent the cake from losing it's moisture, you can store it in a cake caddy, opening it once in a while to allow the hot air to escape. 

Whisk up the whipped cream till stiff peaks form. Reserve 30g of whipped cream for the cake coating.

Add in the chocolate cream and rum.

Mix well!

The cake! Slice into 3 layers.

Using a cake ring, assemble layer one. To help the cake stay nice and moist if you're not consuming the entire cake on the day itself, you can spray some sugar solution made from boiling 1 part sugar to 1 part of water onto the surface of each layer of cake. Just spray a nice small amount.. don't soak the cake in the sugar solution!

Spread a thin layer of cream and pipe a 'ring' on the sides of the cake ring to form a wall. 

In the 'well', spread some of the dark cherries' jam and place some sliced dark pitted cherries in it too.

Cover the jam and cherries with a thin layer of chocolate cream mixture.

Add the second layer of cake.

Cover with layer 2 of cake and apply another thin layer of cream.

Pipe the walls.

Add the jam and cherries!

Top and smooth with chocolate cream.

Top with last layer of cake.

Chill the cake in the fridge for 30 minutes or 10 minutes in the freezer to allow it to set. Do cover the cake in cling wrap to prevent the cake from drying out. Free the sides of the cake ring with the back of a small knife. 

Apply a thin layer of whipped cream to the cake.

Place stencil on top of cake.

Dust a thin layer of sifted cocoa powder on the cake.

Line the sides of the cake with plastic/cake wrap. I had extra chocolate ganache I had left from another cake so I piped it onto the sides of the cake.

Enjoy this Black Forest Cake the way I did! (:

I'd love to see the bakes or stuff you've cooked using the blog's recipe! Do share photos of stuff you've baked or cooked using the blog's recipe with me either via FB message to http://facebook.com/limcynthia OR http://facebook.com/thebakingbiatch OR via email at cynthia.lim.hl@gmail.com! I look forward to hearing from you! (: