Black forest cake

I’m back after 4 months as today is a special day for me. I’m celebrating six months of my blissful married life. I baked my first Black forest cake. I wanted to bake a round one but could not find a round baking dish in the nearby mall, hence landed up baking a square one (It’s actually looking Ok!!!).And luckily it turned out well :-). Had a wonderful lunch with my younger brother and is getting ready for dinner. I was not able to decide what to cook for Mr. Prasad today. Well then suddenly got an idea of preparing everything what HE likes. And here is the menu, Chicken Curry, Butter Naan, Tandoori Chicken and Chilly Prawns. And of course I’m going to prepare them all.

Adapted from divya's blog and rakskitchen.net

Ingredients:

Plain flour/All purpose flour/Maida-1& 1/2 cups

Cocoa powder-3 tbsp

Sugar-1 cup

Oil -1/4 cup

Baking Soda-1 tsp

Lemon juice/Vinegar-1 tbsp

Water   1 cup

Salt-1/4 tsp

Vanilla essence-1/2 tbsp

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.Line a square/round cake tin with butter paper.
2. Mix the plain flour, cocoa powder and baking soda. Sieve them to ensure even mixing and keep aside.
3. Mix water, sugar, salt and make sure the sugar gets dissolved and then add lemon juice/vinegar to it. Add vanilla essence.
4. Add the sifted flour and mix well. Then pour the batter in the cake tin.
5. Bake for 35-40mins or until a tooth pick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
6. Let the cake cool down for 15 mins and then invert it in a wire rack

Ingredients –For the Sugar syrup

Sugar – ½ cup

Water – ½ cup

In a thick bottom pan, mix the sugar and water and boil till the sugar melts.Keep aside to cool.

Ingredients –For the cream 

Fresh cream – 300 ml
Powdered sugar – 4-5 tablespoons

Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon

Keep cream and the beater blades in the freezer for about half an hour.

Add sugar and essence to the chilled cream.

Beat well till the cream is thick and forms soft peaks.

Keep refrigerated till use.

Ingredients for filling and garnish

A cup of canned cherries chopped finely.Reserve a few for garnishing on top.

A bar of milk chocolate – Make chocolate shavings out of the bar and keep refrigerated till use.

For assembling the cake

Cut the cake into 3 layers horizontally.

Keep one layer of the cake on the serving plate.

Sprinkle 3-4 tablespoons of sugar syrup on it.

Now spread 2-3 tablespoons of whipped cream on top of the cake.

Add the chopped cherries on top.

Repeat with other layers.

Cover the cake completely with whipped cream on all sides and the top.

Level the top and sides with a broad spatula dipped in chilled water.

Decorate the top with chocolate shavings, halved cherries and silver beads.

Keep chilled in the fridge till use.

Note:

Mine is a moist egg less chocolate cake.

Do not replace baking soda with baking powder.