Black Forest Cake

Black Forest-ish cake for my partner's cake day.

SOURCES: Adapted from BBC Good Food 'Black Forest Gateau' for filling and 'Ultimate Chocolate Cake' for cake.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2303676/black-forest-gteau
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3092/ultimate-chocolate-cake
Two different recipes because the Gateau cake recipe called for three tins of the same size to bake in the same oven. Who even owns three cake tins, let alone having all the same size! Or even an oven that can fit three tins in at once. The ultimate chocolate cake recipe is an excellent replacement, anyway.
---

INGREDIENTS

CAKE

- 200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) broken into pieces
- 200g butter, chopped a bit smaller than one sad lump
- 2 tsp instant coffee granules
- 170g self-raising flour
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 25g cocoa powder
- 200g light brown muscovado sugar or, rather, the brown demerara sugar behind the now solid brick of muscovado that was only bought a few months ago and yet has managed to convince your spoon to take inspiration from the Matrix. Only, this spoon definitely exists. And is now permanently bent.
- 3 medium eggs
- 75ml buttermilk
- 4 tbsp kirsch mixed with 2 tbsp juice from the pitted cherry tin you're about to buy (or use all juice if you don't want kirsch)

FILLINGS

Chocolate Ganache:

- 125g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) broken into small pieces
- 200ml double cream

[Heat the cream until almost at simmering point, or realistically, until you've almost forgotten about it and it's now bubbling. Pour this over the broken chocolate pieces -in a heat proof bowl- and enjoy the feeling of levelling up to Culinary Wizard as the chocolate turns into a luxuriously glossy ganache while you stir. Set aside to cool.]

Whipped cream:

- 300ml double cream as per the recipe...then realise that's not enough cream for 2 proper thick layers, so dump the rest of the tub in. (Total around 400ml).
- 3 tbsp icing sugar

[Whip to soft peaks. Start off with 2 tbsp of icing sugar in the cream and then taste to check. The ganache has no sugar in it, so you have to balance that deep dark chocolate with light sweet cream. The beauty is in the contrast. So tasting the cream regularly is important. On lookers may not understand this and might be tempted to think - erroneously - that this is just an elaborate excuse to eat the cream. They are wrong. And yes it is absolutely necessary that strawberries are involved. And maybe that last cookie too. Only you, the Chief Wizard Baker, knows through mystical baking science when enough testing has been done.]

Cherry layer:

- 425g can pitted cherries, 2 tbsp juice reserved for the cake layer above, the rest drained
- 100g morello cherry jam

[Mix the cherries with the jam so it's a delicious sticky mess.]
---

DIRECTIONS

1. Prepare the Oven.

Let the oven know something's about to go down by turning it to 160C/fan140C/gas 3.

Give it time to warm to the idea.

While the oven is doing its thing, butter and line a 20cm round cake tin. This is so when you get to pouring the batter in, you realise the 22cm tin you're using is way too wide and that an 18cm tin (not that you have one) would have been much better.

Take a moment to come to peace with the idea that your cake may turn out as a flat disc before you get further on in the recipe.

2. Make the Cake.

Find a heat proof bowl big enough to eventually hold all of the cake batter. Put the 200g dark chocolate and 200g butter in the bowl and place it on top of barely simmering water. Don't let the bottom of the bowl touch the water unless you want burnt lumps. Mix 2 tsp instant coffee into 125ml water and add to the chocolate. Warm over a low heat until melted.

In another bowl, mix the 170g self-raising flour, ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda and 200g not-light-brown-muscovado sugar with the 25g cocoa powder. Squash out lumps.

Separately, beat the 3 eggs with the 75ml buttermilk. Panic, and start whisking the - what can only be accurately described as Lumpy Goo - mixture together until it looks like a frothy combined substance and hope that's how it's meant to look.

Stir the frothy egg into the melted chocolate. Fold in the flour mixture.

Pour into the tin and bake for 1hr 25 – 1hr 30 mins. But check it at 1hr 10 by poking it and seeing if the skewer is clean.

3. Cut and Not Dry.

Once cool, dither with a knife held aggressively toward the cake for about 10 mins while figuring out how to cut it in half without it looking like you lack basic motor skills.

Mix together the 2 tbsp reserved cherry juice and the 4 tbsp kirsch. Drizzle your chocolate discs all over with the delicious syrup.

4. Cakes, Assemble!

From bottom to top: bottom layer of the cake, half the ganache, half the cream, half the cherries, top half of cake, ganache, cream, and finally the remaining cherries strewn as seductively as gravity and soft cream allows.

Chill in the fridge until ready to present in a wonderous display of chocolate and cream and cherries and flame (optional).

Enjoy each morsel with a warm fuzzy feeling. (The warm feeling inside should not be coming from the candles.)