The Good Wife 1

So this year I decided not to buy the Hubs a birthday present, hoping that the baby would slip out of me on the morning so that I could go "ta-dah, here's one I made earlier". Sadly, things haven't been going to plan. To make up for it, I promised him a meal of his choosing, cooked with love. This is what he picked:
Beef Wellington
Potato Gratin
Black Forest
Cheesecake
I make a mean wellington and gratin, if I do say so myself, so no doubt I will post about those when I feel like there's nothing else to post about. I've never been a particularly good baker though, and so when I find recipes that work for me, I figure I ought to share them.

With the thousands of food blogs out there, I tend to seek my recipes from the net these days. It was surprisingly hard to find a black forest recipe that looked good and feasible. In the end I settled on a variant of this one, and aimed for good and possible. My variant was this, and turned out very dense but delish:
Phase 1
300g sugar
300g flour
225g cocoa powder
100g shaved chocolate
1 tspn salt
1 1/2 tspn baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
120ml oil
240ml milk
240ml boiling water

1. Preheat oven to 170 Celsius. Line the bottom of a cake pan (I recommend springform since otherwise it's a removal disaster).
2. Combine sugar, flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder. Sift twice.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the beaten eggs, vegetable oil, and milk. Stir to mix. Then, with the mixer on low, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix on low until evenly distributed.
4. Gradually pour the boiling water into the batter and mix on medium low until smooth.
5. Pour the batter into the cake pan. It was more liquid than I expected and I was unconvinced that it would set, but it did, so have faith!
6. Bake for 35-45 minutes. When a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out cleanly, the cakes are done. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

Phase 2
250g chopped chocolate (I used dark)
75ml heavy whipping cream
1 tbspn butter

1. In a saucepan, heat the cream and butter just until simmering.
2. Pour the hot cream mixture over the chocolate. Whisk the cream into the chocolate until smooth.
3. Slice the cake into the number of layers you'd like. Mine didn't rise much (maybe more baking powder needed?) so I determined that this would be two slices. I also took off the uneven top layer (and started soaking this in kirsch syrup).
4. Spread a thin layer of ganache on top of both of the cooled chocolate cake layers. Let set for an hour in the refrigerator.

Phase 3
Pitted cherries
2 tbspn sugar
1 tbspn cornstarch
1 tbspn kirsch or brandy

1. Place the cherries in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the cherries begin to release their juices.
2. Add the sugar into the cherries, stirring until dissolved.
3. Pour some of the cherry juice into a small bowl. Add the cornstarch to the juice and whisk until the corn starch is completely dissolved. Add the cornstarch and juice back into the saucepan.
4. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for one minute. Remove from heat and stir in the kirsch or brandy. Let cool before using.

Phase 4
125g mascarpone cheese
400ml heavy whipping cream
100g icing sugar

1. Combine the mascarpone cheese and cream in a bowl. Whip until soft peaks.
2. Sift in the icing sugar and continue whipping just until you reach stiff peaks. Be careful not to overwhip! Use immediately.

This could have used more cream, but I was scared.

Phase 5
1. Spread a layer of mascarpone whipped cream on the prepared ganache-chocolate cake.
2. Top with cherries. I added a layer of the soaked uneven bits of cake and repeated the cream and cherries.
3. Add the top layer of cake.

4. Frost the outside of the cake with the remaining cream.
5. Overindulge