Black Forest Gateaux

Method

Chocolate sponge:

• Mix all the dry ingredients together well, add in the wet ingredients and mix well.
• Divide the mixture between the two 8 inch round baking tins.
• If you want a towering cake, double the sponge mixture recipe and divide between three baking tins.
• Cook for 25 – 30 mins at 200C or gas mark 6 and check by poking the cakes with a small knife or toothpick. If the knife or toothpick doesn’t come out clean, put back in the oven for 5 mins at a time until the poke test comes out clean.
• Leave the sponges to cool when done.

Cherry filling:

• Heat the sugar, cornstarch and salt in a pan.
• Stir in the cherry liqueur or water.
• Then add the cherries and cook until the mixture thickens. It can be a little runny as the juice can soak into the bottom sponge.
• You can save the drained cherry juice and add some cherry liqueur to make some lovely sweet shots to go with the cake!

Cream filling:

• Just keep whipping these until they are as thick as you can get – using an electric whisk is best, otherwise you might be whisking all day!

To assemble!

• Place the cherry filling over the first sponge and let the juice soak in.
• If you have only one more sponge, place the cream on top of the cherries. If you have two more, place the next sponge on top of the cherries and then layer the cream on top of that.
• Place the last layer of sponge on the cream.
• On the top, you can go crazy with all cream, or cream around the edge of the top sponge and some cherries in the middle.
• Garnish with your choice of glacé cherries, chocolate shavings or maybe chocolate chips!