Makes 10 servings
Chocolate, cherries and cream – heaven!
Don’t know about you, but I can’t think of many combinations better than this one.
The black forest cake is one of my favourite cakes and surprisingly easy to make. It’s as simple as chocolate sponge, chocolate cream, butter cream, cherries and cherry syrup.
Every element is quick and easy to make with basic ingredients.
The chocolate cream is a game changer; you won’t believe how delicious whipped chocolate ganache can be! And now you know how to make the most amazing chocolate cream for any cake in just 5 minutes.
For the Black Forest cake you can use fresh cherries, cherries in syrup or cherry jam. I’ve used fresh cherries on this occasion because they are in season.
I’ve left the best news for last! You will end up having leftover ingredients to make yourself a little cake to test before serving this to your guests. You know…for quality testing 😊
The chocolate sponges turn out quite domed, so you will need to cut the top off to level them; use that extra sponge for your mini cake. There’s also going to be some leftover cream; just enough for you to build your mini cake. Remember to save yourself some cherries and syrup for that as well.
Enjoy a real treat with your loved ones. No one will believe this is vegan!
Ingredients
Chocolate sponge
1 tablespoon Flora buttery and 1 tablespoon flour to coat the cake tins
1 and ½ cup soy milk
2 teaspoon cider vinegar or lemon juice
2 & 2/3 cups plain flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup sugar
a pinch of salt
½ cup rapeseed oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Chocolate cream
200g dark chocolate
200ml coconut milk (from a can)
Buttercream
100g Flora buttery
150g icing sugar (sifted)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Syrup
50ml cherry brandy
75ml cherry syrup (from a jar of cherries in syrup)
Other ingredients
200g cherries or cherry jam
Method
Chocolate sponge
1.Preheat the oven to 190C. Grease with Flora buttery and coat in flour, two 20cm round cake tins.
2. Heat up the milk for 30 seconds in the microwave and add the cider vinegar. Leave to curdle and move to the next step.
3. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt).
4. Add in the wet ingredients (curdled milk, oil and vanilla) and mix together until combined.
5. Split the mixture between the two cake tins.
6. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to sit in the cake tins for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, remove from the cake tins and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Chocolate cream
1. Use a microwave safe medium size bowl. Break the chocolate into chunks and add it to the bowl with the coconut milk. Heat in the microwave for 30 second intervals and mix with a spoon after every 30 seconds, until melted and combined. It took me about 3-4 30 second intervals. Do not over heat the mixture as the chocolate could burn and that will ruin the cream.
2. Leave the resulting chocolate ganache to cool down completely and set. You could also place it in the fridge to speed up the process.
3. Use a hand/stand mixer to whip the chocolate ganache until it becomes fluffy and light (2-3 minutes).
Buttercream
Sift the icing sugar. Use a hand/stand mixer to cream the Flora buttery with sifted icing sugar and vanilla extract. Mix until pale and fluffy (about 5 minutes on high speed).
Syrup
Mix the cherry brandy and cherry syrup in a jug.
Assembling the cake
1. Remove the pips from 2/3rd of the cherries. Keep the rest of the cherries whole for decoration.
2. Level the sponges by cutting off the domes with a sharp knife. Keep the leftovers for a mini test cake.
3. Put each cream in its own piping bag.
4. Place one chocolate sponge on a plate. Soak the sponge with half of the syrup. Pipe chocolate and butter cream alternating. Top with most of the pitted cherries and keep a few cherries for decoration. Place the second chocolate sponge on top. Soak the sponge with the rest of the syrup. Pipe chocolate and butter cream alternating. Decorate with more cherries. Place the cake in the fridge and remove a couple of hours before serving to bring it to room temperature.
5. Use the leftover sponge, creams and cherries to make yourself a mini cake (for quality testing purposes). You’ve earned it for baking such a wonderful cake for your loved ones 🙂
Food Blog 