Black Forest Gateaux

I haven’t had this particular craving in a long time. Well, not since I decided to bypass the proper cake in favour of a supposedly easy cheesecake last year, which turned out to be a labour of frustration and boredom from patting each cherry dry (I still can’t believe I bothered). I thought this would be an even bigger you-know-what in the hoop, but it was a piece of pi… cake.

I contacted Superquinn to see if they’d share any of their confectionary wisdom since they were main dealer of everyone’s favourite 80’s classic cáca milis, but no luck. ‘Tis but a secret known only to their white aproned angels. Plus the batter comes pre-made, but whatever, it’s €6 a pop for a full cake and it’s ridic delicious, so yay, Superquinn! Very nice to talk to, too.

Egg firmly in arse to finally make it properly, off I went.

Cake batter:

500 g all purpose flour

440 g white sugar

165 g cocoa powder

1.5 teasp. baking powder

3/4 teasp. baking soda

3/4 teasp. salt

3 eggs

1 cup of milk

1/2 cup of vegetable oil

1 tablesp. vanilla extract

Cherry filling/ spread:

2 tins of pitted sour/ black cherries (around 400g per tin before draining)

Keep 3/4 cup of juice when draining the cherries.

230 g white sugar

60 g cornflour

1 teasp. vanilla extract

Fruit liqueur or booze of preference

Whipped cream:

24 fl oz heavy cream

75gm icing sugar

or the easy cheat-

700 ml (2 x Pre-whipped cream Avonmore tubs) cream

Can of squirty cream (oh, hush, it’s only for a little bit)

Start with the batter-

Prepare two 8 or 9 in cake pans by greasing and covering the bottom with greaseproof paper.

I have silicone moulds bought cheaply in Tesco, so no prep needed. Hurrah!

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

Add in the eggs, oil and milk and blend. If you have a standing mixer, use it as this batter is thick and heavy and is hard work with regular hand held beaters.

When all is mixed and smooth, pour into your pans/ moulds. Smooth it out as best you can as the mix is thick and will rise unevenly otherwise.

Check after 40 minutes using a skewer or toothpick. If it doesn’t come out of the centre cleanly, leave in for a little longer, checking at 5-10 minute intervals. Mine took roughly an hour, but would have done quicker if I’d alternated them on shelves about halfway through, so one took a little longer.

Leave the tins/ moulds on wire racks for 10-15 minutes before gently turning them out on the racks to cool fully.

Cherry filling-

Drain  the tins of cherries, reserving about 3/4 cup of the juice.

In a medium pot, pour in your drained cherries, reserved juice, sugar, vanilla extract and cornflour. You can add booze if you like. Cherry liqueur or Cointreau and the usual suspects work fine, but I threw in a glug of Zaconey which was tasty as flip.

Keep on a low heat until it thickens to a heavy honey consistency. If you want a sweet cake, I’d recommend using a full cup of juice and a bit more cornflour and sugar.

Leave to cool completely before using it.

Cream-

I presume if you’re beating your own cream, you might fancy piping it onto the top also. Ooooh, get you! Don’t you judge me, fancypants!

Beat the cream and icing sugar in a cold bowl until stiff. Prepare your piping stuff.

Knowing myself full well, I figured I would quite likely be losing the will to live at this point and may have hit the booze and unable to pipe cream in any delicate manner. Since it had all gone smoothly to this point, I was not a bit bothered but was indeed sampling snifters of Zaconey. Win-win….ish.

When the cakes have cooled fully, take a large bread knife and cut each one in half. Because the batter was heavy, it makes the cakes denser and easy to cut evenly. Huzzah.

Take one of the cake halves and crumble. Leave the crumbs aside. You’re not going to need the full amount of crumbs, so you could reserve some to make a few cake pops. Or, stuff them into your gob. Either, or.

Clear off any crumbs on your sill intact cake pieces, and place your first layer on your serving plate/ stand.

Spread out some whipped cream, leaving a small gap around the edge.

Spoon the cherry filling on top. You might find it easier to drop the cherries around and drizzle the filing seperately.

Place your next layer of cake on, and repeat. Top with your third layer, but leave a larger gap to the edges for the top of the cake.

Spread the whipped cream around the side of the cake. Don’t worry if it’s a little uneven, you’ll be slapping on the cake crumbs shortly.

Take small handfuls (not great mounds like I did. D’OH) and press against the cream along the sides. Brush off any excess on the base of your stand/ plate.

Pipe around the remaining cream at the base and on the outer top edge of your cake. I used squirty cream because I am impatient and didn’t want to wash any more things. It worked just fine.

That’s it! Just watch the crumbs on the side. I shovelled mine on and there was a minor avalanche just before the photo was taken.

The size of the flipping thing….even thought it was easy to do, it’s a lot of cake. A LOT.

Next time, I’ll chance making a swiss roll version (continuing the retro buzz) or split cupcakes.

The more cherry, the better!