Black Forest Cake

You’ve probably had one at your favorite restaurant. Or even tasted it, but you’ve never known how to make one. This month we’ll make one of the world’s best-known deserts. The Black Forest Cake. Enjoy the treat.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups cake flour (150 gm)
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (30gm)
• 1 level tsp Chapa Mandashi
• 6 eggs (room temperature)
• 1 cup fine castor sugar (200gm)
• 2 pinches of salt, 2 tbsp Prestige Margarine, 2 tbsp milk & 2 tsp. vanilla

Syrup ingredients

• 6 tbsp sugar, 9 tbsp hot water & 1/2 tsp vanilla

Frosting ingredients

• 600 ml whipping cream, 2 tbsp icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla essence, 3 cups sliced strawberries for the layers, 2 tbsp sugar, whole cherries or strawberries for garnish, chocolate shavings for garnish

How to

• First prepare the syrup. Mix the sugar in hot water until dissolved, add vanilla. Set aside.
• Also, squash your sliced strawberries by sprinkling the 2 tbsp sugar on them, cover, and refrigerate to make them soft and juicy for the cake filling later
• Preheat oven to 170C
• Grease and line two 8″ round pans, grease parchment paper, and dust the inside of each pan lightly with flour
• Sift the flour with the cocoa powder add Chapa Mandashi, add salt to it, and set aside. These will be your dry ingredients.
• Put the Prestige Margarine and milk in a small heatproof bowl and set aside.
• Take a pan filled a quarter-way with water and put it on the heat, allow it to gently heat up but not come to a rolling boil. This will be the double boiler.
• Put the eggs and castor sugar in a large bowl and beat using a hand mixer for 1 minute. Then place this bowl over the prepared pan of simmering water and continue beating the egg mixture for 3 minutes. Remove the bowl from the double boiler and turn off the heat. Place the bowl with the margarine and milk in this hot water so that it melts gently. Take care that the water does not go into the Prestige Margarine/milk mixture.
• Beating the egg mixture for another 5 minutes until thick. Whisk the egg mixture for a few seconds just to make sure everything is well blended/combined.
• Put the dry ingredients in a sieve and sift all of it gently over the egg mixture. Using a spatula, fold the flour into the egg mixture using gentle strokes. Add the vanilla and the melted Prestige margarine /milk mixture. Again, fold the mixture with your spatula using gentle strokes, to ensure everything is well mixed. Be very gentle and use a light hand to avoid deflating the batter too much.
• Once done, pour the batter into the prepared pans. Tap the pans once on the counter to get rid of any air bubbles. Then bake in the preheated oven for about 23-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Careful not to overbake.
• Immediately on taking the pans out of the oven, tap them on the counter (pick the pan and drop gently a couple of times) to prevent the cake from shrinking as it cools.
• Now turn the cakes over on a rack but do not remove the pans. Let the pans cool down until they are easy to handle with your hands.
• Then whip your cream with icing sugar and vanilla and keep it ready.
• Remove the pans, remove the greaseproof paper. Slice each cake in half, drizzle or brush the sugar syrup all over the cut halves, then on each layer add sliced strawberries. Cover the strawberries with whipped cream, but the second half of the cake and cream that as well. Continue until you have your 4 layers of cake stacked with strawberries and cream filling between the layers. Cover the entire cake with more whipped cream. Decorate the top with chocolate shavings and whole cherries or strawberries. Chill until the cream sets. Enjoy.