black forest cake ala Red Ribbon

Filipinos love black forest cake and if there's a version that elicits moans and groans from anyone who takes a bite, that would be the one they sell at Red Ribbon Bakeshop.  This mouth-watering liquor-moistened chocolate cake, brimming with cherries, cream and generous strips of chocolate shavings is no doubt Red Ribbon's most popular and best-selling cake. 

I am one of those people who embrace and adore this cake, surrendering myself to its lusciousness while i pause and reflect, ponder and wonder about how different yet delightful it tastes.  Even by doing so it has never occurred to me, after all this time, to ask about the origin of its name.  Having said that I have a confession to make:  for the past 2 decades that i have been enjoying this cake, i actually believed that it is simply called black forest because of the chocolate shavings that resemble tree branches. haha.

A couple of weeks ago I researched on this cake to satisfy my curiosity and here's what i found out:  It is a dessert known as Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte that originated from the Black Forest area in southwest Germany.  It is named after the specialty liquor of that region, known as Schwarzwälder Kirsch(wasser) and distilled from tart cherries. With its distinctive cherry pit flavor and alcoholic content, this ingredient gives the cake its unique flavour. 

The dessert has many versions, some without alcohol and others substituting kirsch with rum or other liquors.  Since i am only interested in Red Ribbon's version, i searched the internet and luckily stumbled upon a recipe from LtDan'sKitchen.com.  I followed his cherry filling and cream frosting recipes. Thank you so much Dan!

For the chocolate cake, i simply followed the recipe posted on the back label of Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder.  I couldn't find cherry liqueur or kirschwasser so i grabbed a bottle of Kahlua rum and coffee liqueur instead.

The result is a delicious cake just like i imagined it: sweet and chocolatey with that strong but not overpowering cherry taste and a surprising kick coming from the rum balanced by the bittersweet chocolate shavings (you can use semi-sweet if you like).   It was fun to assemble too and the cherries on top really made it look so pretty and tempting.

My only complaint is that the whipped cream frosting is not sweet enough for my taste but then it's just a matter of personal preference.  Next time i plan to add a little more confectioner's sugar to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Believe it or not i had it for breakfast today... perfect with my french-pressed coffee.  From now on i'll never look at a black forest cake the same way again.  :)

Cake: (Hershey's perfectly chocolate cake or use your favorite chocolate cake recipe)

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water
 

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans. 
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely preferably in the refrigerator so it will firm up a bit. 
 
I usually bake my cake layers a day or two before using them and while still hot, cover/seal them with plastic wrap and freeze until ready to use.  It takes only about 15 minutes to thaw them.

 

Cherry Filling: (recipe from LtDan'sKitchen.com)

• 1 bottle (24-30 oz) of maraschino cherries
• ½ cup syrup from the maraschino bottle
• ¼ cup rum, brandy or coffee liqueur + 4 tbsp extra for drizzling (i used Kahlua rum & coffee liquer)
• 1 tbsp. cornstarch 

1. Reserve about 16 cherries for garnishing and slice the rest into halves.
2. Simmer the sliced cherries and ½ cup cherry syrup from the bottle over low heat. Add the liqueur.
3. Dissolve the cornstarch in about 2 tbsp of water and add into the cherry filling. Let the syrup thicken. Make sure that the syrup coats the back of the spoon when lifted.
4. Remove from the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

Whipped Cream frosting: (also from LtDan's Kitchen or you can use your favorite whipped cream frosting)

• 4 cups of chilled heavy whipping cream
• 1 packet unflavored gelatin (dissolved in ¼ cup hot water)
• ¼ cup of confectioner’s sugar
• ½ tsp vanilla

1. Chill the cream in the fridge for at least a day.
2. In a cold metal bowl (freeze metal bowl and beaters for about 10 minutes before using it), beat the cream at medium speed and slowly drizzle in gelatin. Increase the speed to medium high and gradually add in the sugar. Continue beating until the stiff peak stage. Add the vanilla and combine to mix.
3. Keep the frosting in the fridge unless you are ready to use it. It is best to make the whipped cream prior to frosting the cake.

Assembly:

(Note:  It is best to cool the cake in the refrigerator until it firms up before doing this or thaw for about 15 minutes if frozen)

1. In a large cake dish, lay one cake layer and sprinkle with 1 tbsp of liqueur. Spread a third of the cherry filling and top with about a fifth of the whipped cream frosting.
2. Lay the second layer of cake and do the same as above.
3. Drizzle the top layer with 1 tbsp of liqueur.
4. Cover the cake with a crumb coat and let it rest in the fridge for about an hour. Add the final frosting and pipe rosettes of the cream filling on top of the cake and garnish with chocolate curls (semisweet or bittersweet). Top rosettes with the reserved cherries. Let the cake rest in the fridge in a cake box for about 6 hours before serving.

Marble Cake

Husband's recurring request: marble cake.  He is not a fan of layered cakes with lots of icings or frostings so a marble cake is, by far, the closest to a fancy cake that he'd crave for.  This is my 3rd attempt and while I admit it's still not perfect, it is hands down wayyyy better than the first two cakes i made in terms of taste, texture and appearance. 
















Not perfect because i'm still not satisfied with how i swirled the vanilla and chocolate together to create the marbled effect.  I want (no, demand!) equal amounts of both on every slice, not just a streak of chocolate.  But it tasted really good, thanks to Martha Stewart's website for the recipe.  I don't have dutch-processed cocoa powder (it's so hard to find one) so i used regular unsweetened cocoa powder instead.

MARBLE CAKE

(Martha Stewart's recipe)

Expand

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
1 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder
2/3 cup buttermilk, room temperature (if you don't have buttermilk you can easily make one: just mix 1 cup milk and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.  stir and let sit for 5 minutes then use in any recipe requiring buttermilk.  You can also use white vinegar instead of lemon juice but i haven't tried it yet.)


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan; set aside. Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour. Set aside 1/3 of the batter.
3. In a bowl, mix cocoa and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water with a rubber spatula until smooth. Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved cake batter; stir until well combined.
4. Spoon batters into the prepared pan in 2 layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate to simulate a checkerboard. To create marbling, run a table knife (or wooden skewer) through the batters in a swirling motion.
5. Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack to cool 10 minutes. Turn out cake from pan and cool completely on the rack. Cake can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

Share and enjoy!

race track cake

To celebrate my son's 2nd birthday i made my first ever fancy cake: a race track cake.  It's a chocolate sheet cake recipe copied from the back of hershey's unsweetened cocoa box frosted with 7-minute white frosting which i colored green. I would have wanted a darker shade of green to mimic grass but instead came up with a lighter one which is still ok.  For the race track i outlined number '2' and flooded it with chocolate fudge frosting topped with crushed oreo chocolate chip cookies to resemble dirt. Then i used white jimmies candy sprinkles (i chose the long ones) to create the track. Sooo easy!

I topped the cake with new cars toys and surrounded the side with oreo cookies to cover the imperfection... they look like tires too, don't you think?  Then i added a California plate with his name on it (the letters i had to stick one by one which explains why they are not perfectly aligned). It was a party just for the three of us and he had fun licking on the oreo cookies, the chocolate frosting and "driving" his cars on the track. He loved it! Talk about eating your cake and playing with it too!

Now, our 2-year old is licensed to drive us crazy! ^_^

Happy Birthday baby!!!

banana chocolate chip muffins

Another ugly sorry-looking bananas sitting at our kitchen counter this morning and waiting for me to decide on their fate. In the past their only destination would be the garbage bin but after i baked my first ever basic banana bread more than a year ago, i never looked at overriped bananas the same way again.

So what's a pretty girl to do? transform them into banana chocolate chip muffins! So simple, fun and easy to make. yum-my!

BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIPS MUFFINS

Basic banana bread recipe is from Simply Recipes.  I just made it into muffins and added chocolate chips. :)

Ingredients
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1/3 cup melted butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup chocolate chips, divided

1.  Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2.  Using a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.
3.  Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla.
4.  Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.
5.  Add the flour, mix.
6.  Add 1/4 cup chocolate chips, mix. 
7.  Spoon mixture into a muffin tray (i use ice cream scoop) and sprinkle the top with the rest of the chocolate chips.
8. Bake for 25 minutes. 
9.  Remove tray from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes.
10. Remove muffins from tray and transfer to cooling rack.

Makes 12 muffins.

To make a loaf bread, pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour.  Cool on a rack then remove from pan.

For mini-loaf bread (3x5 inch), bake for 40-45 minutes.

If you don't like chocolate chips, just disregard it.  You can also substitute chocolate chips with nuts and dried fruits.

LOVE-A Cake

It was during our 2nd week together as a dating couple that Fil and i got hooked to this french classic - moelleux au chocolat.   We were at Figaro in Davao City having coffee and sharing a dessert we absentmindedly ordered from the shelf. With its warm chocolate sauce oozing out of the center like a lava coming out of a volcano, we finished it in record time. The whole time we were feasting on it, we talked about nothing else...just how delicious and irresistible it was. Fil swore it tasted the same as the one he had in Paris. As for me, surely i have had this dessert in the past but it was on that very day that i officially became a fan. Since then, it has become our favorite dessert. We've searched everywhere for it but nothing tasted as perfect as that one we first had. Others were just too dry or too bitter or too sweet.

But no more searching now 'coz I have learned to bake it myself. Never too late to learn a new skill, eh? I'm so surprised at how simple it was to make it. In just about 30 minutes (prep + bake time), i can come up with a magic dessert that would make Fil do whatever i say hehehe. We personally love it as is or sometimes we pair it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Imagine the hot lava and the cold ice cream exploding in your mouth. Sinfully delicious!

Pardon the lack of art in my photo but i was too excited to eat it i didn't have the patience to compose the shot. Take this as my gift to you this Valentine's...kahit picture lang :-)

Stay happy and in love!

Lava Cake
(Adapted from famousfrenchdesserts.com)

Ingredients

6 oz. 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate (i use Ghirardelli brand)
6 oz. Unsalted Butter (diced, room temperature) plus more for ramekins
3 Large Eggs
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
1/3 cup Flour

How to Make It:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F
2. Butter 4 individual ramekins starting from the bottom to the sides
3. Melt chocolate on low flame in a double boiler. When melted, stir in diced butter until it melts.
4. In another bowl, beat eggs and sugar, until it starts to whiten.
5. Stir in melted chocolate and then the flour.
6. Butter 4 individual ramekins, and pour in chocolate batter.
7. Cook for about 11 minutes.
8. Tip ramekins upside down onto dessert plates and serve.

Enjoy!