Tag: chocolate cake

Recipe: Black Forest Cake for Easter

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Makes: 6-inch cake

Time required: 2 hours

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Inspiration:

Easter has always been one of my favourite holidays growing up – treating yourself to a few Cadbury creme eggs and Lindt Easter bunnies approaching Easter and then buying so many more chocolates at half-price come Easter Monday!! However since moving to Hong Kong it has been much more difficult to find Easter chocolates … my local supermarkets sell a few Easter teddies or headbands but Easter eggs are much harder to find. So I was very excited last week when I checked Marks & Spencer and found they have a whole section of different sized chocolate bunnies and eggs.

With the past weekend being my last chance to bake before Easter (as I will be travelling the next few weeks) I wanted to make a fun/playful cake using the Easter eggs as decorations. I decided to make a black forest cake as I’m still dreaming about the amazing one I had at L’Eto during my London visit several months back.

The components for this cake are:

  • rich, moist chocolate cake
  • cherry sauce
  • Chantilly cream
  • Easter eggs and chocolate flakes for decoration
Black Forest cake decorated with Easter Eggs
Black Forest cake decorated with Easter Eggs

Ingredients

Chocolate cake:

  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 cup caster sugar
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp espresso powder
  • 60g butter, melted
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla paste
  • 1/2 cup boiling water

Cherry topping:

  • 300g cherries, pitted
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 1 sheet gelatin
  • 60ml brandy

Chantilly cream:

  • 300ml cream
  • 1 cup pure icing sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla paste

Decorations:

  • 3 medium sized chocolate Easter eggs
  • Easter quail egg chocolates
  • Chocolate flakes

Instructions

Chocolate cake:

  1. preheat oven to 160C and grease cake tins
  2. sift together the dry ingredients into a bowl
  3. add the butter, milk, egg, vanilla and mix on medium speed until well combined
  4. slowly add the boiling water while mixing on low speed
  5. distribute the batter into two 6inch cake tins
  6. bake for 20-25mins

Cherry sauce:

  1. puree cherries in a food processor or with a stick blender
  2. place cherries and sugar in a pot over medium heat until simmering. Allow to simmer for 10mins until the liquid has thickened
  3. remove from heat and add the bloomed gelatin sheet
  4. stir in the brandy and set aside to cool

Chantilly cream:

  1. whisk together the cream, sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form

To assemble:

  1. cut the chocolate cakes in half so we now have four discs
  2. place the first disc onto a cake board and brush with a light coat of brandy
  3. pipe a circle of Chantilly cream around the edges of the cake
  4. now fill the insides of that circle with cherry sauce
  5. coat with a thin layer of Chantilly cream
  6. repeat with the remaining layers of the cake then coat the entire cake with the remaining Chantilly cream
  7. decorate with the chocolate flakes and Easter eggs
pipe a circle of Chantilly cream around the edge of the cake
pipe a circle of Chantilly cream around the edge of the cake
fill with cherry sauce
fill with cherry sauce
Coat the black forest cake with the remaining Chantilly cream
Coat the black forest cake with the remaining Chantilly cream

IMG_2282

Balck Forest Easter cake
Decorate the Black Forest cake with Easter Eggs

 

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Recipe: Chocolate Banana drip cake

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Makes: 8 inch cake (4 layers)

Time required: 5 hours in total

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆

Inspiration:

After brainstorming ideas for an upcoming birthday cake, I decided to draw inspiration from one of my favourite snacks at work – banana & chocolate croissants from the amazing Joel Robuchon. The croissants are a great afternoon snack – deliciously flaky pastry, filled with light banana custard … lightly sweetened with chocolate.

The elements making up this cake are:

  • four layers of banana cake
  • Almond and hazelnut dacquoise to add some texture
  • chocolate ganache to sweeten the cake
  • meringue buttercream
  • Decorations: dried pineapple flowers, torched meringue, chocolate shards

Ingredients:

Banana Cake:

  • 6 bananas
  • 250g plain flour
  • 100g almond meal
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 200g butter, softened
  • 150g caster sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 2tsp vanilla
  • 300ml sour cream

Almond dacquoise:

  • 90g almond meal
  • 90g pure icing sugar
  • 4 egg whites
  • 90g caster sugar
  • 20g cocoa powder
  • crushed hazelnuts. to sprinkle

Chocolate gananche:

  • 150g dark chocolate
  • 150ml cream

Meringue butterncream

  • 4 egg whites
  • 360g caster sugar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 450g butter
  • 1tsp vanilla
  • 20g cocoa powder

Chocolate drip:

  • 150g dark chocolate
  • 200g butter

Decorations:

  • dried pineapple slices
  • chocolate shards
  • merginue

Instructions:

Banana Cake:

  1. preheat oven to 180C. Butter two 8 inch round baking pans
  2. mash ripe banana with a fork and set aside
  3. whisk together the flour, almond meal and baking powder
  4. in a separate bowl, beat butter until smooth. add sugar and beat until pale and fluffy
  5. add eggs one at a time into the bowl and whisk to combine
  6. add in vanilla and combine
  7. mix in half the dry ingredients
  8. mix in sour cream
  9. fold in the remaining flour mixture
  10. fold in the banana until just combined
  11. divide the cake batter evenly into the two tins and bake for 25 minutes
  12. place the baked cake on a wire rack to cook and then turn out after 10 minutes to cool completely
Banana cake ready to go into the oven
Banana cake ready to go into the oven

Almond Dacqouise:

  1. preheat oven to 200C
  2. sift almond meal with icing sugar and cocoa powder
  3. in a separate bowl, whisk egg whites with caster sugar until stiff peaks form
  4. gently fold in the almond mixture
  5. sprinkle with crushed hazelnuts
  6. pipe the mixture onto a baking sheet (make 3 x 8 inch discs to layer between the banana cakes) and bake for 24 minutes or until the dacquoise doesn’t sink when touched
Almond dacquoise with banana cake
Almond dacquoise with banana cake

Chocolate ganache:

  1. bring the cream to boil over low-med heat
  2. pour boiling cream over the chocolate and set aside for 2 minutes
  3. mix together the chocolate and cream

Meringue buttercream:

  1. bring the sugar to boil with 1/2 cup water
  2. while whisking the egg whites on maximum speed, pour the sugar syrup in a slow steady stream
  3. continue to mix on high until the meringue cools and forms stiff peaks
  4. whisk in the butter until well combined
  5. add vanilla and cocoa powder and whisk to combine

Chocolate drip:

  1. melt chocolate over double boiler
  2. stir in butter to melt

Assembling the cake:

layer the cake in the following order from bottom to top:

  • banana cake (cut each of the 8 inch cakes in half to create 4 layers of banana cake)
  • chocolate ganache
  • almond dacquoise
  • meringue buttercream
  • repeat until all layers of banana cake are used
  • coat the entire cake in the meringue buttercream – to create an ombre/rustic effect, split the buttercream into 3 batches and colour each batch a different shade of brown
  • pipe on the chocolate drip
  • top with decorations: dried pineapple flowers, torched meringue, chocolate triangles
Assembling the layers of the drip cake
Assembling the layers of the drip cake
different shades of brown buttercream to create a rustic effect
different shades of brown buttercream to create a rustic effect
Applying the chocolate drip
Applying the chocolate drip
Chocolate drip
Chocolate drip
torching the meringue
torching the meringue

 

slicing the chocolate banana drip cake
slicing the chocolate banana drip cake. Photo credit: IG lilaughs

 

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