We make this cake for almost every birthday. My mother-in-law gave me the recipe about 30 years ago and it's been a favorite birthday cake for all of us.
This will make a 9 " square cake. Double it if you have a bigger crowd - you can make two 9" layers, three 8" ones or a 9"x13" cake. Yum!
Marjorie's Black Forest Cake
Combine dry ingredients:
3/4 C and 2 T flour
1 C sugar
1/4 C and 2 T cocoa
3/4 t baking soda
3/4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
Sift all this together.
In a separate bowl combine:
1 egg
1/2 C milk
1/4 C melted butter
2 t vanilla
1/2 C boiling water
Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients.
Pour into a greased and floured pan and bake at 350 degress for 25 minutes.
Let it cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then remove the cake from the pan and finish cooling on a rack.
Spread a can of chilled cherry pie filling on top and garnish generously with whipped cream.
Here's what I did last time I made this (T's 2022 birthday) for a layer cake. .
ReplyDeleteEven before starting on cake, work on cherry topping:
12 oz of frozen or fresh pitted cherries (I used Walmart frozen sweet cherries)
1 cups tart cherry juice
2 tsp sugar (or more)
2-3 tsp corn starch
1/4 tsp almond extract.
Place cherries and juice in sauce pan. Heat on medium high heat. Mix corn starch and sugar together in a small bowl so that sugar breaks up corn starch. Add a little bit of juice from the sauce pan to make a slurry. Mix in with with juice and cherries. Cook, stirring continually, so that cherries reduce. It needs to come to a boil so that corn starch cooks and thickens the mixture. Once it is close to that canned pie-filling consistency, take off heat and cool -- it will thicken more as it cools. Add almond extract once off the heat. Place in refrigerator to start cooling before you start on the cake.
Then make the cake. I like to add in almond extract in place of some of the vanilla.
Whipped cream:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4-1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
2 tbs marshmallow fluff (optional, helps cream be more stable if you make it a bit ahead or want to store leftovers without it weeping -- see https://jennifercooks.com/stabilized-whipped-cream/)
Whip together. If using marshmallow fluff, soften it in microwave in 10 sec bursts and then add to cream after it is slightly thickened but not yet to soft peaks.
To prep the cake for assembly:
Cool cake first on counter and then in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Once cool, use a bread knife to cut the cake in half horizontally. Also, if desired, use the bread knife to strip of the top puffy layer of its puffiness.
To assemble:
Place one layer down on your cake board (e.g., a wood cutting board). Spread a bit more than half of the cherry mixture on the cake, keeping about a 1/2 inch border without cherries on the edge (the cherries will spread out further as the next layer is added). Similarly, spread about half of the whipping cream on the cherries. Sprinkle about 2 oz of chopped chocolate (chop it either fine or chunky) on top of the whipped cream.
Then do the next layer. Place the next layer of cake down. You can do upside down if you like (with the cut side up, this will help with absorption of the cherries above). Spread out cherries onto the cake next. Spread out the rest of the whipped cream. Add another 2 oz of chopped chocolate, or if you are feeling ambitious, you can make chocolate curls with a potato peeler instead. Decorate with fresh cherries.