Black Forest Cake

Ingredients

For Cake

• All Purpose Flour (Maida) - 1/2 cup (50 gms)
• Cocoa Powder - 1/2 cup (50 gms)
• Powdered Sugar - 1 cup
• Butter - 1 cup (100 gms)
• Eggs - 6
• Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp

For Frosting

• Heavy Whipping Cream (Double Cream) - 1 pint
• Sugar - as needed
• Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
• Cherries - 1 can
• Chocolate Bar - 1 (grated/shaved)
• Chocolate Rice - as needed

For syrup

• Water/ Syrup from cherry can - 1 cup
• Sugar - 1/2 cup
• Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp

Method

For the cake

1. Sieve together the all purpose flour (maida) and cocoa powder into a bowl.
2. Melt the butter in the microwave.
3. Beat the eggs in a bowl using a hand blender until it becomes very creamy and frothy.
4. Mix together all the wet ingredients (melted butter, sugar, vanilla essence) along with the beaten eggs.
5. Finally fold in the dry ingredients (flour + cocoa) with the wet ingredients.
6. Mix everything nicely with a wooden spoon until you get a smooth batter.
7. Grease a cake pan with butter and dust some flour and cocoa powder on it and keep it ready.
8. Pour the cake batter into the pan and bake it in a oven preheated to 350 degree F (180 C) for about 40-45 minutes.
9. Check if the cake is done by inserting a toothpick in the middle of the cake. It should come out clean.
10. Switch off the oven and cool the cake before applying the syrup and frosting.

For the syrup

1. Pour the cherry syrup/plain water into a small sauce pan.
2. Add the sugar to it and bring it to a boil.
3. Finally add the vanilla essence to the syrup and keep aside. (Traditionally a tbsp of rum is added to the sugar syrup.)

For the frosting

1. Beat the whipping cream with enough sugar and vanilla essence until a nice fluffy frosting is ready.(You could also use frozen whipped cream.)

Final cake assembling

1. Cut the top to make it flat before applying the frosting.
2. Cut the cake laterally into 3 equal circles.
3. Take all the 3 pieces and pierce it with a fork at random places. This will help the syrup to penetrate into the cake.
4. Add 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.
5. Take a cake stand or serving dish and place one piece of cake.
6. Apply a generous amount of frosting and top it with chopped cherries, choclate shavings and chocolate rice.
7. Place the second piece of cake on top and apply the frosting and toppings.
8. Top it with the 3rd slice of cake.
9. Apple the remaining frosting on top of the cake and on all the sides.
10. Sprinkle chocolate shavings (grated chocolate bar) and chocolate rice on top and all around the cake.
11. Top the cake with cherries. Yummy black forest cake is ready.