Sunday, February 6, 2011

Black Forest Cake -Part 2

So now you have your 2 layers of cake, what else will you need?
1 can Cherry pie filling-extra cherry
1 batch icing, buttercream (recipe follows), whipped cream icing, or sour cream icing
optional: maraschino or fresh cherries and chocolate shavings for decoration.

Place your bottom layer of cake on serving platter. Pre-ice layer with a very thin layer of icing. Put 3/4 can of cherry filling on top leaving 1/2 inch around edge free of cherries. Top with second layer. Pre-ice second layer. This will prevent crumbs from getting onto the final layer and give it a cleaner look. If you'd like you can make the icing a little on the thin side for pre-icing then add more powdered sugar to thicken it up for the final icing. Next spread the final layer thickly onto entire cake and sides and smooth out. Top with chocolate shavings and remaining or fresh cherries. If you Google images of Black forest cake there are photos that will put my cake to shame-I suppose I will just have to make another cake just to make it pretty like theirs and get a decent photo sometime! ;) Store iced cake in fridge.



Butter-cream Icing
1/2 cup butter (or Earth-balance)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups powdered/confectioners sugar
1 Tbl milk or soy
Beat until smooth! Store in refrigerator.

As promised! Black Forest Cake -Part 1



One of my favorite cakes! Apparently no one in Texas has heard of this delight, so I will share with you the very easy recipe!
First you make a chocolate cake in 2 round or square pans, you can use your favorite recipe or use mine which follows. My recipe is a version of "wacky cake" which was made during the depression when people could not afford milk and eggs. I have tried similar recipes that I did not like at all, I tweaked it some and came out with this delight. I made this chocolate cake for Elijah's birthday party and it was a hit. In my opinion it holds up much better than box cake-it isn't super crumby- which is great for when you cut it up. Enjoy the fact that it is cholesterol free too!
I have only made this in a square pan and it made one, nice, thick cake so I would recommend doubling it for a layered cake.

Perfect Chocolate Cake
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
6 Tbl cocoa powder-I recommend Hershey's Special Dark YUM!
1 tsp baking SODA
3 Tbl vegetable oil or canola oil
3 Tbl applesauce
1 Tbl vinegar (dont worry you cant taste it)
1 tsp almond extract(or vanilla)
1 cup water/milk (true "wacky cake" uses water-I use soy-you can use cows milk)

Pre heat oven to 350. Mix together dry ingredients. Then make 3 holes in the mixture. Put the oil and applesauce in one, vinegar in another, and extract in the last. Then pour the water/milk over it all and stir. I am not really sure if doing it in that manner makes a difference but all of the recipes I found for "wacky cake" did that. Grease a round or square pan. Then bake-I honestly do not know how long I baked it-until it smelled good and a fork stuck in the middle came out clean...about 34-40 minutes. Sorry I am so bad about that. I do everything by feel not by rules. Note* if you dont like dark chocolate use 4Tbl of the traditional Hersheys cocoa powder.
The picture shows the cake once I cut it up and "pre-iced" it before I put rolled fondant on for Elijah's Train Cake.