Black forest cake makes a heavenly dessert with several layers of cake made of rich chocolate. It has whipped cream and cherries in between the layers. Nothing can be more satisfying than making this delectable dessert at home. Unlike popular belief, making this cake is a very easy task. With patience, proper instructions and care, one will find it a cakewalk to prepare this dessert. It makes a perfect delicious dessert for the entire family. Rich chocolate filled with creamy cherries is sure to please even the most indifferent foodies. So, let’s check out how you can prepare black forest cake with the help of following instructions and tips.
Complexity Level: Basic
Time Required: 2 hours
Resources Required:
- All-purpose flour – 210 gms
- Unsweetened cocoa – 56 gms
- Salt – 1 tea spoon
- Baking soda – 1 1/2 teaspoons
- Eggs – 3
- Milk – 1 cup
- Baking powder – 1 1/2 teaspoons
- Vanilla extract – 1 tea spoon
- White Sugar – 1 1/2 cups
- Confectioners’ sugar – 3 1/2 cups
- Mild chocolate – 1 ounce
- Pitted and drained cherries – 2 cans
- Whipped cream – 500 ml
- Vegetable oil – 1/2 cup
- Cornstarch – 1/4 cup
- Chocolate curls – 1 cup
Instructions:
1. Preparation
- Mix the all purpose flour with sugar, baking powder, soda, cocoa and salt. Add milk, oil, vanilla extract, eggs to the mixture. Beat it thoroughly using a blender.
- Drain the cherries with a colander to remove the juice. Reserve and keep aside 1/2 cup of juice.
- Heat a saucepan and add reserved cherry juice, sugar, cherries and cornstarch. Cook in low flame and keep stirring the mixture until it thickens. Add vanilla extract and cook for a minute or two. Keep it aside to cool.
- Whip the cream in a mixing bowl with confectioner’s sugar. Beat it with mixer which will form stiff peaks.
2. Bake
- Grease two round 9 inch cake pans. Cover the bottom of the pan with paper made of parchment.
- Pour the cake mix into the prepared pans.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Bake the cake mix for 30-35 minutes. Wooden tooth picks when inserted in the cake should come out clean, which indicates that the cake is well-cooked. Let it cool. Remove parchment paper from the cake.
3. Assemble
- Place one layer of cake and spread 1/2 inch thick whipped cream on it. Toss the cherries on the cream layer for topping. Using toothpicks poke holes in the cake layers with 1 inch apart.
- Dribble the thickened juice into the holes using an eye dropper or a teaspoon. Ensure the juice gets into the holes completely.
- Refrigerate the cake layers with the juice for over an hour. This lets the cherry juice to ooze through the cake till the bottom.
- Remove the cake from refrigerator.
- Spread another layer of cake on the layer of cherries. Repeat spreading its top with 1/2 inch whipped cream and another layer with cherries.
- With the remaining cream, decorate the top layer with cream swirls.
- Gently press the chocolate curls on the sides of the cake into the cream with fingers.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How to prepare the icing for the cake?
Whip two cups of heavy cream with 1/4 cup of confectioner’s sugar until it forms soft peaks. Add piping gel (1/4 cup) and vanilla extract to the mixture and continue to whip until stiff peaks are formed. Put it in the refrigerator for later use. Spoon the reserved icing into a parchment bag. Pipe mounds of icing around top of the cake. You can also pipe around bottom edge if desired.
Quick Tips:
- Always whip the cream when you are ready to stack the cake layers.
- You should have cold utensils to thicken the cream. Hence, chill the utensils overnight.
Things To Watch Out For:
1. Never dribble the juice completely on the layer of the cake. It will make the cake too moist.
2. Icing becomes lumpy when the mixture is whipped beyond the stiff peak stage. You should stop mixing as soon as it reaches that stage.
3. Frosted cake needs to be refrigerated, else the icing begins to melt.
