Black Forest Cake

Hello everybody! Hope you had a great start in this year 2011

I thought of welcoming the new year by baking a cake. This is the first time I am making this cake and the frosting.  I searched in all the super markets here for the whipping powder and also the whipping cream, but I couldn’t get it. So I tried using amul cream and whipped it with icing sugar for 10-15 minutes and YIPPPPEEEEEE the whipping cream was ready. The whipping cream and the cake was a total surprise for my Husband J

My love for BF cake started when I was in college. There was a restaurant near my house called “black forest restaurant”, and my friends used to give birthday parties here. In this restaurant, they used to make different varieties of black forest treats. From then on, I started looking out for BFC whenever I used to go to pastry shops.

So here I am, raising a toast to the  new year and a new decade with a Black Forest Cake.

Ingredients:

1. All purpose flour/Maida- 1 ¼ cup
2. Cocoa Powder- 2 ½tbsp
3. Condensed milk- ¾ tin
4. Baking powder- 1tsp
5. Baking soda- ½ tsp
6. Milk- ½ cup
7. Melted butter- ½ cup
8. Vanilla essence- 1tsp

For the whip cream filling:

1. Amul cream-1 small pack (kept in fridge)
2. Icing sugar- 2tbsp

For Sugar syrup:

1. Water- ½cup
2. Sugar- 3tbsp

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to 180C. Grease a cake pan with butter and then Maida.
2. Sift the flour, coco powder, baking powder and soda in a bowl.
3. Place the butter, vanilla essence and milkmaid in a large mixing bowl and beat with electric beater. Add the above sifted flour mixture and milk little by little and fold till everything is well mixed.
4. Pour this cake batter in the greased pan and bake for45-50 minutes or until the skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
5. After 5 minutes turn the cake over to a wire rack and let it cool completely.

For the sugar syrup:

1. In a small sauce over medium heat, combine the sugar and water. 
2. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature.

For the whipping cream frosting:

1. Beat the icing sugar and amul cream well, till stiff peaks are formed.

For assembling the cake:

1. Cut the cake horizontally into 3 even layers. Place one portion of cake on serving plate and pour the sugar syrup (we can also sprinkle poached cherries along with sugar syrup) add 1/3 of the whipped cream and spread it with a spatula.
2. Lay down the 2^nd cake portion carefully on top of the first portion and press gently. Sprinkle sugar syrup and spread whipped cream. Top with the last cake slice and press gently and sprinkle the remaining sugar syrup (don’t sprinkle too much of sugar syrup, otherwise the cake will become too soggy) and spread the cream evenly on top and on sides of the cake and smooth it with a spatula.
3. I decorated this cake with cherries, nutella and chocolate vermicelli.