Blackforest Birthday Cake

My mum turns 70 years old earlier this month. We made her hold a birthday celebration. As  Chinese, she likes to add one more year to her age (don't know why). Therefore, I was tasked, or rather, volunteered to bake a birthday cake for her party.

It was very stressful to bake such a big cake, enough to feed 30 persons. After thinking through for a long time, I decided to make the most basic cake - Black forest Cake. I wanted to make a cake which I know my parents will like. I've made this cake before, and they liked it. So this time, I made it into a larger cake. The cake sheet was so thin and fragile. It was rather difficult to do the transfer. I baked three 14" x 10" cake sheets. Bought 3kg of dark pitted cherries and two non-diary whipping cream. In the end, I used 2/3 of the pitted cherries and about 1.2kg of the whipping cream. Not to forget the maraschino cherries for decorations.

Recipe for one cake sheet is here. Bake at 180C for 15mins. Here are the various steps I took to make the cake. For the wordings, melt compound chocolate and mould it accordingly. Then colour the whipping cream and write the wordings.

Blackforest Cake

Last week, my sisters and I were discussing how we were going to celebrate Father's Day. A usual dinner at home, followed by a cake. They were very kind to ask if I wanted to bake a cake or if we should buy it from the stores. As usual, if it's within my means, I will definitely prefer to bake it myself. Initially, I thought of baking a chocolate fudge cake.


However, since my one of my baking friend had just shared with me about the chocolate chiffon cake from "Delicious Cakes", I decided to make the most classic decorated cake - Blackforest Cake. As expected, the cake turned out to be really good. My dad loved it! He actually commented that this is the best cake I had produced! Was I supposed to be happy or disappointed? Happy that he liked my cake. Disappointed that after baking for so long, this is the only cake that met his expectation?? LOL. Whatever it is, I was just glad that he liked it!

Recipe for Blackforest Cake, modified from "Delicious Cakes" by Amy Heng.


Chocolate Chiffon Cake
Makes a 9" round cake


Ingredients:
(A)
30g Cocoa powder (mixed with 120g hot water, and leave it to cool)
4 Egg yolks
80g Caster sugar
130g Self-raising flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
60g Corn oil
1 tsp Vanilla extract


(B)
4 Egg whites
60g Caster sugar
1/2 tsp Cream of tartar


Method:

1. In a bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar together till light and fluffy.
2. Then add in the rest of wet ingredients (A) and mix well.
3. Add in the remaining dry ingredients (A) and mix until smooth.
4. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy.
5. Add in sugar gradually and continue whisking until glossy and soft peak.
6. Take one third of egg whites and fold gently into step (3).
7. Then pour the above mixture into egg white and fold to incorporate.
8. Pour the mixture into a prepared lined 9" cake pan and baked in a pre-heated oven of 180C for 40mins.
9. Invert cake and leave until completely cool before cutting into 3 layers horizontally.

Blackforest Fillings

Ingredients:

250g Grottines (liquer cherries) (can replace this with 1 can of pitted cherries)

500g Whipping cream

50g Caster sugar

1 tbsp Corn flour

Dark chocolate rasps

Chocolate pearl (optional)

Berries (optional)

Cherries (optional)

Method:

1. Drain out the juice from the cherries and leave aside.
2. Put juice in a pot and add corn flour. Stir until combined and cook over low heat until boiled and thickened. Stir constantly while cooking. Leave it to cool.
3. Whip the cream with sugar until stiff.

To assemble:

1. Place a slice of cake onto a cake board.
2. Spread a layer of whipped cream and cherry syrup then decorate with cherries.
3. Repeat with 2nd layer of cake, cream, syrup and cherries. End with the last layer of cake.
4. Spread the whole cake with cream.
5. Decorate the sides with chocolate rasps.
6. Decorate with chocolate pearls, berries or cherries to your preference.
7. Serve chill.

Blackforest Cake for my MIL!

I didn't really know what other cake to bake for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day, so I ended up baking something I'd tried before-Blackforest cake.

Baked two 7" chocolate cakes.

Spread with cherry sauce, chocolate and added the cherries.

Four layers of cake for me.

Added whipped cream as frosting, and dark chocolate rasps at the sides.

Finally, decorated it with chocolate strawberries and a white chocolate heart shaped that says "母亲节快乐" (Happy Mother's Day!).

Also to all the great mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day!