Black Forest Cake with a Twist

Today is the Saint Valentine's day - this is the cake I made for my valentines (don't mistake me on the use of plural; these are my Hubby and my dear daughter). I dedicate this to them.

This is a cake that you can make from scratch or you can get it done semi-home made - by buying out some of the ingredients from shop rather than making all by yourself.



Totally Home Made:

Ingredients (For the Cake):

1. All purpose flour ("Maida")  - 2 cups
2. Powdered sugar - 1 3/4 cup
3. Eggs - 2
4. Cocoa powder -1/2 cup
5. Milk - 1 cup
6. Butter - 1/2 cup
7. Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
8. Salt - 1/2 tsp
9. Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
10. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp

Ingredients (For the frosting):

1. Heavy whipping cream - 2 cups
2. Fresh Strawberry - 18 nos. medium to big ones
3. Sugar - 1/2 cup
4. Confectioner's sugar - 1/2 cup
5. Red wine (or if you prefer something stronger, you may use Rum )-  optional 1/4 cup
6. Chocolate shavings - 1/2 cup ( you can make this by grating chocolate bar with a vegetable peeler
7. Flavorless Gelatin - 2 tsp
8. Chocolate chips or chocolate bar - 1/2 cup (for dipping the strawberries)

Method (Cake):
Sieve all-purpose flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cocoa powder thrice. Whip sugar and butter  for 3 minutes and add vanilla. Then add eggs one at a time; continue whipping at a medium speed for 3 more minutes. Then add the sieved  powders and milk little by little to this mix. Mix well all the ingredients. Grease and dust two 8" baking pan/trays.  (For greasing and dusting the pan you can apply some little amount of butter evenly on the insides of the pan and then dust it by sprinkling the all-purpose flour to form a thin layer. Tap the pan upside down, lightly on the back  to remove excess powder). Pour the mix into the baking tray/pan. - make sure you fill it only upto 2/3 of the pan. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degree F and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted into the cakes comes out clean (preferably keeping  the pans in the middle rack for even heat). Let the cake cool for about an hour (or till it reaches the room temperature fully).

Method (Frosting):
Soak the gelatin in 4 tablespoons of water for 5 minutes. Then heat/microwave this till the gelatin melts. Take 8  strawberries make a puree of it adding sugar to it.  Mix the confectioner's sugar and the heavy whipping cream and whip it well till it forms soft peaks. Add to it the cooled gelatin mix and whip for a minute more. Then add half of the strawberry puree to this and whip it again for a minute.

To the remaining strawberry puree add wine/rum and keep it aside.
Cut 4 strawberries into bite size pieces and sprinkle some sugar to it and  keep it aside.
Take the remaining 6 strawberries, wash and dry them well (don't remove the stem/leaves). Double boil the chocolate chips till they melt and dip the strawberries in it. Keep it for till the chocolate sets. ( for best results, keep the washed and dried strawberries for a day in the refrigerator; this will help the chocolates to set faster)

Method (how to put the cake together):
Prick the cakes with a toothpick and then spread the strawberry puree-wine/rum mix on it. Put a layer of the frosting over one of  the puree drenched cakes. Then sprinkle the cut strawberry pieces. Put one more layer of frosting on top of this and put the second cake on top of this. Spread the frosting all around the cakes evenly covering it on all sides. Sprinkle the chocolate shavings on the sides and decorate the top of the cake with the chocolate dipped strawberries.

This cake will taste best the next day if refrigerated overnight.

Semi-Home Made:
If you are busy to do all this from scratch you can make it semi-home made by using either a store bought chocolate cake or using a cake mix of Devil's food cake that can be bought from the grocery store (Pillsbury or Duncan Hines).

You may also use strawberry jam/jelly to substitute for the strawberry puree. Mix 3 tablespoons of jelly with 6 tbsp of water and microwave /heat it till it mixed well.

I have used special pans to get this heart shape above.
Hope you will all try it and enjoy it as my family did.