Black Forest Cake

Yesterday a friend of mine had a birthday! John and I drove down to meet him, his wife (my best friend!), and the rest of his family in Banff to celebrate for the day.  I offered to bake a cake, and one of the suggestions was black forest cake. I had never made a black forest cake before, but I have definitely had some delicious versions of it so I was excited to try it out!

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, and it was as amazing as all of the reviews stated! The chocolate cake portion was delicious by itself, and the additional layers of whipped cream and cherry pie filling made the cake so amazingly moist.  The cake was then iced with vanilla buttercream frosting, and decorated with blue and green polka dots.

The best part of this recipe (from a baker's perspective at least) was the fact that the cakes baked up completely level! There was no time-consuming/cake-wasting levelling required!  All I did was cut each cake in half in order to get 4 layers (and therefore 3 delicious layers of whipped cream and cherry pie filling!).  I still can't believe that I didn't get any pictures of the two cakes when I pulled them out of the oven and they were completely level. :)

This recipe is a definite keeper, I will be making this one again and again.  If you are looking for a great chocolate cake recipe, this one is very tasty and has the amazing bonus that it bakes up nice and level.

Black Forest Cake

• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup coffee, cold
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 2 tbsp icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350F then grease and flour two 8" round cake pans (or spray them with baking spray)
2. In a small bowl combine the milk and vinegar and set aside to sour
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt
4. In a second large bowl, whisk together the eggs, vegetable oil, cold coffee, and vanilla
5. Add the sour milk to the wet ingredients and mix well
6. Add the flour mixture (about a cup at at time) to the wet ingredients and mix until the batter is just coming together
7. Pour the batter into the two prepared cake pans and bake for 25 - 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when poked into the middle of a cake pan
8. Let the cakes cool completely 
9. While the cakes are cooling, whip the whipping cream and icing sugar together until soft peaks form
10. When the cakes are cool, cut each in half lenth-wise so that you have 4 round cakes
11. On the first layer of cake, spread 1/3 of the whipping cream, followed by 1/3 of the cherry pie filling
12. Repeat with the next two layers of cake and the remaining whipping cream and cherry pie filling
13. Top everything with the last layer of cake
14. You can ice this with vanilla buttercream, additional whipped cream, chocolate buttercream, whatever you prefer!
15. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve
16. Enjoy!