Ingredients
The following ingredients have 4 Servings
- For Cake
- All Purpose Flour (Maida) - 2 1/4 cup
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder - 3/4 cup
- Instant Coffee Powder - 1 tbsp
- Sugar - 2 cups
- Butter - 1 cup
- Eggs - 3
- Milk - 1/3 cup
- Water - 1 cup
- Baking Powder - 1 tsp
- Baking (Cooking) Soda - 2 tsp
- Salt - a pinch
- Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
- For Frosting & Topping
- Heavy Whipping Cream (Double Cream) - 3 cups
- Powdered Sugar - 1/2 cup
- Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
- Cherries - 1 can
- Chocolate Bar - 1 (grated/ shaved)
- Chocolate Rice (optional) - as needed
- For Syrup
- Water - 1/4 cup
- Syrup from cherry can - 1/4 cup
- Sugar - 1/3 cup
Instruction
- For the Cake
- Sieve together the dry ingredients - all purpose flour (maida), cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl.
- Melt the butter in the microwave. Beat the eggs in a bowl using a hand blender until it becomes very creamy and frothy.
- Mix together all the wet ingredients (melted butter, sugar, vanilla essence, milk, water, instant coffee powder) along with the beaten eggs.
- Finally fold in the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. Combine with a wooden spoon until you get a smooth batter.
- Grease two 9" round cake pans with butter and dust some flour and cocoa powder on it and keep it ready.
- Pour equal quantities of the prepared cake batter into both the pan. Bake it in a oven preheated to 350 degree F (180 C) for about 30-35 minutes. You can also use a single cake pan to bake a big cake and later cut into half.
- Check if the cake is done by inserting a toothpick in the middle of the cake. It should come out clean.
- Switch off the oven and cool the cake before applying the syrup and frosting.
- For the Syrup
- Pour the cherry syrup and plain water into a small sauce pan.
- Add the sugar to it and heat until everything combines.
- Finally add the vanilla essence to the syrup and switch off. (Traditionally a tbsp of rum or cherry brandy is added to the sugar syrup. I do not prefer adding that.)
- Cool it and keep it ready.
- For the Frosting
- Beat the whipping cream with sugar and vanilla essence until a nice fluffy frosting is ready. (You could also use store bought frozen whipped cream.)
- Final Cake Assembling
- Cut the top to make it flat before applying the frosting.
- Cut both the cakes laterally into 2 equal halves. Since I am not good at it, I just used one cake on top of the other.
- Take all the 4 cake pieces and pierce it with a fork at random places. This will help the syrup to penetrate into the cake.
- Drizzle few spoonfuls of the syrup on each cake piece and let the cake absorb it. This step is very very important to make the cake moist and delicious.
- Take a cake stand or serving dish and place one piece of cake. Apply a generous amount of frosting and top it with chopped cherries and some choclate shavings.
- Place the second piece of cake on top and apply the frosting and toppings. Repeat the same with the 3rd and 4th slices of cake.
- Apply the remaining frosting gererously on top of the cake and on all the sides of the assembled cake.
- Sprinkle chocolate shavings (grated chocolate bar) and chocolate rice (or sprinkles) on top and all around the cake.
- Top the cake with cherries. Yummy black forest cake is ready