with really rich chocolate cake, heaps of cherries between the layers, cover the whole

thing in cream and then add our chocolate Christmas trees around the outside.

Now if you're making this and it's not for Christmas, you can either leave them there

because it's like a black forest for a black forest cake or you could add some chocolate

curls and little swirls of cream on top with a cherry like you would see on a more traditional black

forest cake decoration.

The first thing you'll need to make to make this cake is you'll need to make the chocolate cake

of course and for that you will need flour, sugar, cocoa powder, eggs and yes there really

are a dozen eggs in this recipe, butter, baking powder and chocolate.

I'll put all the recipe quantities on the howtocookthat.net website in grams and ounces

and cups for you and I'll link to that below.

Add the chocolate to the butter and melt it over some boiling water Now the bottom of

the bowl should not touch the water there should be a gap between the two. Then just

stir that until the chocolate and the butter are melted and remove it from the heat.

Then add in the sugar and stir that through really well. Now once it is cooled down add

the eggs and whisk them through.

Now add the flour, cocoa powder and the baking powder and keep mixing them through, mixing

it through until you have a nice glossy cake batter.

Grease and line three round cake tins with some non-stick baking paper. And then split

the cake batter evenly between those three tins.

And then place those into the oven to cook.

For the syrup you need sugar, brandy - now traditionally a black forrest cakes uses kirsch

which is a clear cherry brandy I'm just using normal brandy here, and water.

Add the water to the sugar and if you want to evaporate off the actual alcohol content

and just have the flavour then add the brandy now too.

Stir it up and heat it in the microwave until the sugar is completely dissolved and it's

totally clear.

Once your cakes are ready take them out of the oven and let them cool.

For the filling we need cornflour and two tins of cherries. Drain the cherries and add 2

cups of the juice into a saucepan and mix a small amount of the juice into the cornflour.

Now I want you to keep mixing that to get rid of any lumps at all and then once it's

all smooth, add it into the pan and mix it in.

Heat that over high heat and stir it continuously, and you'll see what will start to look like

little thicker lumps and eventually the whole thing becomes thick and it starts to get clearer

as well. Once it is boiling you want to continue to let that bubble away for about another

minute.

This is how my Mum taught me how to get cakes out of the tin. Run a knife around the outside

edge and then hold each side and gently shake it up and down, then turn the tin and shake

it up and down and once you know it's loose on each side just flip it upside down take

the tin off and peel off the baking paper.

Level off each of your cakes, now they are super crumbly because we have only just baked

them. Fresh cakes are always crumbly.

Whip your cream and add in some vanilla and icing sugar to taste, and whisk that through

until you've got soft peaks. Place some of that into a piping bag.

And then put your first layer of cake onto a plate and pipe cream around the outside

edge. Add as much or as little of the syrup as you like depending on how strong you want that brandy

flavour to be. Spread a generous layer of the thickened cherry juice. And then add lots

of cherries, these are my favourite part of this cake so I like to use heaps. Next add

another layer of cake, more syrup, lots of cherry juice and of course more cherries.

Then add the final layer of cake on top and press it down slightly so that it's all firmly into

in place.

Now we want to cover the whole cake in cream. Start by covering the top and then smooth

that off using a palette knife. And then cover the sides and smooth those out too.

To make the chocolate decorations melt the chocolate in a bowl just like we did when

we were making the cake, and stir it until it is all melted. Now you can also do this

in the microwave if you have one.

I'm using compound chocolate today so that it doesn't need tempering. If you want to

use real chocolate you can do that too but you'll need to temper it. Put the chocolate

into a piping bag and pipe up and down a few times to make the trunk of the tree. Then

scribble the chocolate in and out, in and out along each side to make the branches of

the tree.

You can make some baby trees and some big tall trees, they can be all different sizes

and that will give a nice variety as you go around the cake.

Once they are set, just peel them off the paper and add them into place.

Time to slice it. Yummm look at that, can you see all of those cherries in there. YUMMMMM!

How good is that? Subscribe to howtocookthat for more cakes

chocolates and dessert.

Click here for the recipe, here for the howtocookthat channel and here for last week's video.

Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday.