Alright! Black Forest Cake recipe!

^_^ Before we get started, let me describe what Black Forest Cake is. Black Forest C ake is a very classic historical cake usually served in parties & celebrations. It is typically made of chocolate genoise (a type of spongy cake originated fro m the aesthetical city of Genoa, Italy), soaked in Kirsch flavoured cherry syrup , filled with pitted black cherries, iced with Kirsch flavoured heavy cream fros ting, and finished garnish of chocolate shavings. (If you wonder what Kirsch is, it is a type of brandy made of cherries. Since i don't take alcohol, i substitu ted it with either balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, or white wine vinegar.) = P I'll divide this instruction into 3 sections: 1) Prepare & bake chocolate genoise (pronounced jeh'no-ah... nevermind...), 2) Prepare black cherries filling, 3) Prepare Whipped cream frosting, 4) Assemble the cake 1) Prepare and bake chocolate genoise First & foremost, preheat the oven to 180 degree Celcius, grease a 9-inch ro und cake pan, and layer the cake pan with wax paper. In a bowl, sift together 1/2 cup of wheat flour, 1/3 cup of cocoa powder (ge t a Dutch-processed cocoa powder if possible.. Otherwise, regular cocoa powder w ould do the job just fine..), and a pinch of salt. Make sure there's no lump lef t in the sifted mixture. In a seperate bowl, whisk 4 eggs with 2/3 cup of sugar. Place the mixture over the heat of simmering water whisking constantly until the mixture became lukewarm (usually this will take about 5 minutes). Be very c areful not to COOK the eggs. Remove the egg mixture from the heat. You'll find the egg mixture look kinda frothy at this point. Put the egg mixture to the bowl of electric mixer. Beat the mixture with hig h speed until the mixture become thick, smooth, and creamy (about 5 minutes... a gain!!!). Beat in 1 tsp of vanilla extract into the egg mixture. Fold in about one third of the sifted dry mixture into the egg mixture in th ree foldings. This is important to avoid formation of lumps. Melt about 3 tbsp of unsalted butter and fold in the hot melted butter into the batter mixture. Pour the batter into your cake pan, and bake the batter for about 20-25 minu te. Let the cake cool before remove it from the pan. Now that the cake is cooled down, feel free cut it and enjoy it.. Enjoy the tasty fluffy cake!! =3 Just kidding... Hey! Hey! Don't!! Not yet, at least.. While you're waiting f or the cake to cool down, let's prepare the filling & frosting ingredients. ^_^ 2) Prepare black cherry fillings Get a jar (around 700 mL) of pitted black cherries in syrup. You can also us e other type of cherries, or even other type of berries if you'd like. Drain the cherries from the syrup, reserving about 1 cup of the syrup. In a bowl, toss the drained cherries with 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar and 1 t bsp of the syrup. As for the remaining reserved syrup, put it in a saucepan with about 4 tbsp of granulated sugar and heat them until the sugar is dissolved. Remove the syrup from the heat, and add 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar. Let the syrup cool.

3) Prepare whipped cream frosting In your mixing bowl place 2 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream, 1 tsp of vanill a extract, and 3 tbsp of sugar. Stir to combine the ingredients. Cover and chill the bowl and wire whisk in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Beat the mixture with the cold wire whisk just until stiff peaks form. 4) Assemble the cake (At last!! Finally.. The genoise should be cooled and ready to be assembled at this point..) Using a sharp knife, cut the genoise, horizontally, into two layers. Place on your serving plate. Soak the cake layer with 1/4 cup cherry syrup (if you don't desire the cake to be too wet and soaky, just brush the cake with the syrup). Take 1 cup of whipped cream and spread on the moistened genoise. Place the cherries evenly over the cream. Soak the cut-side of second genoise layer with another 1/4 cup of the syrup (again, use a brush if you don't like it to be too wet and soaky). Place cut-side down on top of the cherries, gently pressing to compact. Reserve one cup (240 ml) of whipped cream and spread the remaining cream ove r top and sides of cake. Place reserved cream in a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe "rosettes" of cream around the top of cake. Decorate with fresh cherries on top of the "rosettes" and shaved chocolate i n the middle and on the side of the cake. Cover and refrigerate the cake for several hours (or overnight) before servi ng. That's all about Black Forest Cake. Kinda easy, is it not? Good luck!!! ^_^