My Culinary Trial Room

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Black Forest Cake for Parent's Anniversary

It was my parent's anniversary yesterday and it was special to us as my dad had turned 60 this year and so it was their Sashtiapthapoorthi (a special function that is celebrated when the husband reaches 60).
I wanted to make THEIR DAY so very special and was confused to drill down on what to do when huss dear jumped in to save my day. Proud of my baking skills these days, he asked me to bake and decorate a full cake for the midnight celebrations. I always wanted to bake and decorate a whole cake from scratch after looking into all the lovely blogs out here but was too frightened to take this up. But Mr.A motivated me into this process and yeah I baked my first complete cake yesterday and it was a hit with everyone.
My mom and dad were proud of their little girl and were happy to look at the love and effort that I had put in that had transformed into a wonderful cake in front of their eyes. They were too touched and did not want to cut their little angel's creation.

So when it came to bake the cake, the first question that popped was what kinda cake to bake... My mom is a die-hard fan of black forest cake and what else would come into my mind. So black forest it is...

So next to the recipe... I was confused which recipe to follow because I do not have an oven at present and whatever I have blogged about were steamed ones only. So I needed a steamed chocolate cake recipe for the base cake and finally found one at Divya Kudua’s Easy cooking
So onto the recipe;

~* Ingredients *~

For the chocolate cake:
All purpose flour – 1 cup
Dark Cocoa powder – 4 tbsp
Sugar – 1 cup
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Baking soda – ½ tsp
Salt – a pinch
Milk – 1 cup
Vinegar – 1 tsp
Egg – 1
Melted butter – 1 tsp
Vanilla essence – 1 tsp

For the sugar syrup
Sugar – ½ cup
Water – ½ cup
Or
Orange Juice – 1 cup

For the cream
Whipping cream – 200 ml
Powdered sugar – 3-4 tbsp
Vanilla essence – 1 tsp

Others
Finely chopped cherries – ½ cup
Halved Cherries – 3 - 4
Dark Chocolate shavings – 1 cup
Chocolate vermicelli / Silver sugar balls / Colored sugar balls
**Keep all the above refrigerated till use

The Making:
Of Steamed Chocolate Cake:
Add the vinegar to milk and mix well with a spoon.
Set aside for few minutes after which the milk will start to curdle and become sour milk Sift together all purpose flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt thrice

Melt the butter. Cream the sugar and butter together

Add the egg and mix well till creamy. Add the vanilla essence and beat well

Add the sour milk and combine everything without any lumps. Now add the flour mixture and fold in till well combined and lump-free

Grease a baking pan with butter and pour in the batter

Place it in a steamer and steam for 30 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Tips: Cover the pan tightly using aluminum foil so that the steam does not escape. This is optional. I skipped this.
Once done allow it to cool completely and then remove the cake.
Refrigerate the cake till use. This will ensure that when decorating the cake, you won’t have lot many crumbs.

Of Sugar syrup:
In a thick bottom pan, mix the sugar and water and boil till the sugar melts.
Keep aside to cool.
You can also use orange juice. I used half of sugar syrup and half of orange juice.
Using orange juice gives a bit of tanginess to the cake which we loved. The dark chocolate complimented the citrussy flavor very well. Next time I will be using orange juice only because I feel that this will make the cake moister. So waiting to experiment.

Of Whipped Cream filling:
Place the cream and the beater blades in the freezer for about half an hour.
In a large bowl, add sugar and essence to the chilled cream

Beat well till the cream is thick and forms soft peaks

Keep refrigerated till use.

Assembling the cake:
Cut the cake into 3 layers horizontally using a serrated knife. Mine was a small cake and hence I cut it into 2 layers Keep one layer of the cake on the serving plate.
Sprinkle 3-4 tablespoons of sugar syrup / orange juice on it. You can also brush the cake with the sugar syrup using a bakery brush
Now spread a dollop (3 to 4 tbsp) of whipped cream on top of the cake. Smooth it out with a spatula or knife dipped in chilled water.
Add the chopped cherries on top. Repeat with other layers if any.
Crumb coat the entire cake with a layer of whipped cream. Smooth out the cream. Refrigerate for 1 hour

Again cover the cake completely with whipped cream on all sides and the top.
This time use more cream so that the frosting thickness is atleast half centimeter, Level the top and sides with a broad spatula dipped in chilled water.
Scoop out the excess whipping cream into a piping bag and decorate the sides of the cake. This is also optional. I used the Star nozzle and used the following icing model.

Decorate the top and sides with chocolate shavings, halved cherries and colored sugar balls. Keep chilled in the fridge till use.

Note: My mom and I are ardent fans of dark chocolate and hence I have used dark cocoa powder and dark chocolate shavings. You can use milk chocolate as well.
I dedicate this post to my lovely family (my mom, dad, huss and brother dear). A special dedication to my brother who is currently residing in the US and whom we missed a lot throughout the celebrations... Miss u dear and wish you were here...