Black Forest Cake

I took half-day leave yesterday as my girls' student care centre was closed for Easter Day. After fetching the girls from school and had our lunch, we came home immediately as I have a project to accomplish within the remaining day. That is, to bake a Black Forest Cake for a good pal's surprise birthday celebration in the office today.

I have chosen Black Forest Cake as she has been wanting me to bake her a black forest cake for very long. So, this is the best occasion to fulfil her wish :P

I started to search in the Internet for various Black Forest Cake recipes few weeks ago but did not manage to find a perfect fit for I am looking for one that is alcohol free, fuss free to assemble (I am super-bad in frosting), and one with moist cake texture as the birthday girl does not take cheese and cake which are too creamy / buttery. Furthermore, most of the traditional Black Forest Cake recipes require kirsch or other fruity flavored liqueur but I do not have any at home.

Finally, I settled on a devil's chocolate cake recipe for the cake which was passed to me by another colleague. She herself does not bake but have tasted the cake baked by her sister when they celebrated their mother's birthday back in Perth recently. For the filling and whipping cream, I modified the recipe from this Black Forest Cake by Fooddiary .

I was very nervous when it was time to assemble the cake as I am totally no good when it comes to frosting with cream. I baked the cakes in the afternoon and left them to cool down while we went out for dinner. After dinner, I spent about 2 hours to prepare the cherry fillings, the whipping cream and of course the most scary part of the project - assemble the cake from two pieces of plain chocolate cake to a fully assembled Black Forest Cake as you see in the photos here. Phew!

In my own opinion, the appearance of the cake is a bit messy due to my stingy use of whipping cream spreads on the side and top of the cake. I tried to spread as thin a lay as possible as I figured out that eventually I would cover up the whole cake with shredded chocolate. But as the cream layer was so thin, the shredded chocolate do not really stick well to the cake. Worst is, I did not buy enough milk chocolate and hence, while most part of the cake was covered with brown shredded chocolate, some part was covered with white chocolate. :( My elder daughter commented that the cake looked like half shaved head. LOL. I sprinkle some almond flake on top, to try to balance out the amount of brown and white color and further decorated the cake with bright red strawberry (instead of Cherries since they are not available at this period of time).

How does the cake look like after the full dress up? Daughter said "WOW" :), and my colleagues commented that it is like store-bought Black Forest Cake. Hee Hee. The birthday girl was very touch to see that I really baked her a Black Forest Cake.

 



 

And how does it taste like? I love it after my first bite. It is very soft and flavorful. All my colleagues also sing praise of it. All these positive feedback leave my on cloud nine :)). My hard work yesterday are well paid off !