We’ve tried many a Black Forest Cake here in the Bay Area. But they haven’t been quite satisfactory, declared the Black Forest Cake fan i.e. the husband. So for his birthday weekend, I decided to just go for it and make it myself. And thanks to two recipes online, here it is!

First get hold of some cherries – these Morello cherries were from Trader Joe’s.

Then make a chocolate cake! I used the cake recipe from Brown Eyed Baker. But decided that I needed an alternative recipe after that as I:

(i) didn’t want to use maraschino cherries – thus the tart Morello cherries above, which required some cooking with sugar (see below)

(ii) wanted to add a chocolate ganache – er, simply because one can never have too much chocolate, plus it was a birthday cake!

So I found this Black Forest Cake recipe from Home Cooking in Montana, which had everything I was looking for!

So with the jar of cherries, save some cherries for decoration, and pop the rest in a saucepan with a few tablespoons of the cherry liquid and a couple of tablespoons of sugar (depending on how tart your cherries are, and how sweet your tastebuds are) and about a tablespoon of cornstarch to thicken it. Simmer for a few minutes to thicken.

Meanwhile, in another saucepan, heat a pint of heavy cream until it’s about to boil, take it off the heat, and pour in about 10 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips. Stir until the chocolate melts. A whisk comes in handy here. Let it cool. I left it on the kitchen counter to cool, checking on it once in a while, whisking a little.

Then with a mixer, whisk a pint of heavy cream with some powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. If you’re not using this straightaway, I’d recommend chilling it.

Ok so your oven has shouted at you to turn it off and you’ve tested your cake with a skewer/toothpick and all that. And cooled it well.

So now you can slice your cake in half (if you, like me, only have one cake pan. Otherwise, you could’ve made two cakes).

Then lovingly slather a good amount of chocolate ganache over the top and sides. Top with the cooled cherries and syrup (you probably don’t need to pack it as much as I did). And some of that whipped heavy cream you did earlier.

Next, gently place your second slice of cake on top. Try not to smush things too much, as it’ll all come out at the sides like mine did.

And once again, plenty of chocolate ganache, the remaining whipped cream. And top with those reserved cherries.

Hopefully yours looks better than mine.

More importantly, it was absolutely delicious.

The birthday husband was thoroughly pleased. Black Forest is his favorite and I have been meaning to make it for a while, but was a little intimidated. Wee Reader surprisingly loved the cherries (I shouldn’t be surprised, he does like Japanese pickles). My mum enjoyed her slice and had a bit more. And I liked it so much I had some for breakfast.

Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, beer, wine, photographs