Black Forest Cake - Part 2

Here’s where we get to the good stuff; Turning your regular old chocolate cake into something special…

What You Need:

670g jar of morello cherries
2 tablespoons of caster sugar
1 tablespoons of cornflour
600ml of thickened cream

1/4 cup of kirsch
2 tablespoons of boiling water
2 tablespoons of caster sugar, extra
100g dark chocolate, coarsely grated

What You Do:

1. Once your cake has cooled completely, slice into three layers (if you can)using a serrated knife and set aside.

2. Drain the cherries, reserving 2/3 cup of the juice. Reserve 10 - 20 cherries to decorate. Place the remaining cherries and the reserved juice in a saucepan with sugar and cornflour. Stirring over medium-low heat bring to the boil until the mixture starts to thicken. Transfer to a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill.

3. While the cherry mixture is cooling, use an electric beater to beat cream in a medium bowl until firm peaks form. (Be patient, this takes a while. If you’re having difficulty, add a little bit of sugar)

4. Place kirsch, boiling water and extra sugar in a jug and stir until the sugar dissolves.

5. Place 1 cake layer on a serving plate and drizzle over half of the kirsch mixture. Spread half of the cherry mixture, followed by a thin layer of cream. Repeat with the second cake layer, kirsch mixture, cherry mixture and cream. Top with the last layer of cake.

6. Spread some of the remaining cream over the top and side of the cake. Sprinkle the chocolate over the top and gently press onto the side of the cake using your hands or a butter knife.

7. Place the remaining cream in a piping bag fitted with a 1cm fluted nozzle and pipe around the edge of the cake.

8. Arrange the reserved cherries around the cake in the cream.

Behold! Allow the dodgey-est animated GIF ever demonstrate how the cake comes together. Once the cake is iced the hardest part is is getting an even layer of the chocolate shavings around the sides. If you know an easy way to coat the sides of a layered cake without losing shape or squishing all the insides out, let me know. But the method I used was carefully pressing the shavings into the icing with the use of a butter knife. Its slow, but I found it the easiest way to get an even coverage on the sides.Even though it takes patience to pull the whole thing together, it really is a fun cake to make. This time around the cake ended up being HUGE! Luckily I have 3 housemates are various friends popping in and out to help polish it off.