Black Forest Cake
The cake (and the birthday) was a success! If I make it again, I would skip the brandy, but it’s still good!
3 things I learned while making this:
1. Real whipped cream is AMAZING, sinful, delightful, divine. I could sing it’s praises for hours. While I understand the convenience of a tub of Cool Whip, if you have 5 extra minutes splurge on the real thing.
2. I need to work on my layer cake technique. Even after shaving the tops off there was still a big gap between the layers. Good thing I had extra whipped cream to fill it in.
3. I will never be a perfectionist when I cook. Save that for Becca. You might think this looks pretty good in the picture, but I’ll let you in on a secret–the other side was my practice side.
Here’s the recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 dark chocolate cake mix
- 1/4 c. kirsch (cherry brandy)
- 1 can cherry pie filling
- 16 oz. heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 c. confectioners’ sugar
- milk chocolate curls or shavings, for garnish
Preparation:
- Drain cherry pie filling in a colander to remove most of the thickened juices.
- Make cake, following package directions. Bake cake, as directed, in two 9-inch layer cake pans.
- When cool, sprinkle kirsch over both cake layers.
- Chill electric beaters and large mixing bowl (this step is KEY!); beat cream until it thickens slightly, gradually add confectioners’ sugar and beat until thick enough to hold its shape.
- Using a vegetable peeler, shave chocolate; refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Assemble cake; place one layer on serving plate and spread its top with 1/2-inch thick layer of whipped cream and strew the cherries over the cream leaving about 1/2 inch margin around border of cake with no cherries.
- Set other layer on top of cherries and spread top and sides of cake with remaining cream, shape whipped cream into decorative swirls on top.
- Garnish top with drained maraschino cherries, if desired, or with a few remaining chocolate curls.