Bake-a-Mania: Black Forest Cake

I have just finished baking and decorating a Black Forest Cake for my dad-in-law's birthday and Boy!! Am I poofed out. This cake wasn't the one that I originally planned to make. In the morning, I begun with making a sugar free chocolate cake as my father-in-law has diabetes, thinking that it being his birthday today, he can actually enjoy the sugar free cake to his heart's content instead of having just an itsy bitsy tiny piece and that too under the watchful eyes of my mom-in-law. After baking, I wasn't very happy with with the way the cake turned out. Even though it was quite soft and moist, disappointingly it did not rise well (would it be because of the sugar free in the cake?). Looking at the time, it was almost 12'OClock in the afternoon and in two hours the kiddos would be back home from school and (not surprisingly enough) I wanted to finish off my cake before they came back. I decided to go in for my favorite Microwave Chocolate Cake which touchwood always works for me and till date has never failed to "rise to the occassion".

Quickly, I dumped in all the ingredients for the cake together in a mixing bowl, mixed it quickly with my hand mixer, put the bowl in the microwave (I use the same bowl for mixing that can also go in the microwave - saves time), crossed my fingers and waited. (I actually call this cake my "dump cake" as you can just dump in all the ingredients together in a bowl, quickly whizzed it with a hand mixer for a minute, put it in the microwave and voila! you have a great cake ready in 10 minutes.)
As always, the cake rose perfectly and was wonderfully moist and soft.

Thanking my stars that at least the first step of baking the cake was done, now on to the next step, that of decorating the cake. The first thought that came to my mind was to make a Chocolate Ganache and cover the cake with it. But then I gave up that idea as I had done the same icing on so many other occasions and also I wanted to try something new. As I didn't have much time left, I looked through my grocery cupboard and found a Delmonte fruit cocktail tin. I had been wanting to try out a Blackforest cake since a very long time but somehow never got around to do so, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to do so now. I quickly whipped some cream ( I always have a packet or two of Amul cream in my grocery cupboard which I save for times like this), opened the fruit cocktail tin and fished out all the cherries from it, whipped some cream, grated some chocolate, just put everything together and within no time my cake was ready. (Of course, just made it till the icing part before the kiddos walked in from school and you can imagine what would have happened next. But even then, managed to salvage just enough cherries for the cake.)
The end product was a great looking and a great tasting cake completely to my satisfaction which as you can guess got a lot of "oohs" and "aahs" from everyone !!

Ingredients
For the chocolate cake:-
100 gms flour

100 gms sugar

4 Tbsp cocoa

1 tsp coffee powder

4 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ cup oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

½ cup cold milk

1 tbsp vinegar
For the icing :-
400 gms whipped cream
200 gms canned cherries (pitted)
100 gms grated chocolate

200 ml syrup or any juice to soak the cake

Method:
To make the cake:

Sift together all your dry ingredients – Maida, cocoa, coffee powder, baking powder and baking soda and keep them aside.

Add vinegar to the cold milk and put in the fridge till required.

In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar really well till the mixture is nice and fluffy and creamy. Use a hand mixer for good results.

Pour in the oil and the milk and vinegar mixture and mix well.

Add the vanilla essence.

Take a wooden spoon and fold in carefully the dry ingredients into the egg mixture till well mixed.

Pour the batter into a greased microwave dish.

Bake in the microwave oven for 7-8 minutes. (Check after 7 minutes to see if it is done as every microwave has a different cooking time)
Insert a toothpick to check if it comes out clean. If not done, bake for one more minute.

The cake should start pulling away from the sides and springs back when touched.

Cover the cake and leave it in the microwave for 5 -10 minutes. Once the cake is completely cool, cut it horizontally into three even layers.

To Assemble

Place a layer of cake on a cake plate. Sprinkle with 2-3 teaspoons of the cherry juice to moisten the cake. Cover the cake layer completely with 1/3 whipped cream. Spread some cherries on top of the whipped cream.