Eggless Black Forest Cake | Birthday Celebration Cakes

Today is special – it is my dear husband’s birthday! 🙂 He is not big on celebrating his birthdays and doesn’t like me making a big deal either. But do you think I would budge down?! Nah. I try to make it as special as possible for the man, who changed my life. He is one of the biggest gifts and I cant thank God enough for bringing both of us together. On his special day, I dedicate this post to my husband! 🙂

Let me make myself very clear – I am a novice baker. I have a small sized OTG and most of my home baking experiments have been self-learnt. Some of them are a huge successes while I have had a few failures too. Few years now, I have stopped baking big cakes unless there is a special reason as we don’t want to end up eating a lot of cake. While I can call myself a decent enough cake baker (following my no-fail recipes), I am not so good at decorating. Well, I am making serious attempts to improve myself. I don’t think I am 100% satisfied with my decorating this black forest cake, but then it tasted super good – so I am happy.

Black Forest Pastry is one of our favorite cakes and that’s why I wanted to make it for my husband’s birthday. While this is no way the traditional recipe, this is a good fail proof eggless recipe for Black Forest Pastry that works like a charm. The best part is that this is an eggless cake – absolutely no eggy after taste. The only thing I hate about this cake is the wait time (from letting it cool down to icing it) – I was ready to pounce on it as soon as it was baked but had to control myself until iced and decorated and of course until the husband cut it 😀 I loved the classic colors of deep brown, white, brown and red – perfect for a dark forest! Indeed this cake has become very special for us 🙂

To make Eggless Black Forest Cake | Birthday Celebration Cakes

Servings: makes a 9” cake
Time: Prep Time – 10 mins + Bake Time - 30 mins + Set Time – 20 mins
Difficulty: Medium
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What I used –

For the Eggless Black Forest Cake -

All Purpose Flour, 1 cup
Cocoa Powder, 4 tbsp
Instant Coffee Powder, ½ teaspoon (optional)
Sugar, ¾ cup
Vegetable Oil, ⅓ cup
Milk, ½ cup
Thick Curd/Plain Yogurt, ½ cup
Baking Soda, 1 tsp
Baking Powder, ½ tsp
Vinegar, 1 tsp
Vanilla Essence, 1 tsp

For the Frosting –

Fresh Whipping Cream, 200 ml
Pitted Cherries, 15-20
Icing Sugar, 3-4 tbsp
Vanilla Essence, ½ tsp
Sugar, 3 tsp
Water, less than ¼ cup
Dark/Milk Chocolate Shavings, as needed

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Prep Work –

1. Pre-heat the oven at 180°C for atleast 10 mins.

2. Grease and line a 9” cake tin with baking paper.

How I made –

Baking the Eggless Chocolate Cake -

1. Sieve all-purpose flour and cocoa powder for a couple of times until mixed well. Set aside. In a separate bowl, add all the wet ingredients – milk, curd, oil, vanilla essence, baking powder, baking soda, instant coffee and sugar – mix well.

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2. When the sugar has dissolved, add vinegar to the mixture. Soon, it would rise up and turn frothy. Add it immediately to the flour-cocoa powder mix. Gently fold it together with the flour.

3. Pour the prepared batter into the lined baking tray. Set it for baking at 175°C for 25-30 mins. When a tooth pick is inserted, it should come out clean. Remove it from the oven and let the cake cool down completely. Gently un-mold the cake from the tray and remove the baking sheet. Make sure the cake is completely cool before icing it.

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Preparing the Icing and Decorating the Cake –

1. Make sure the whipping cream is cold. Place the whipping cream in a bowl and keep the bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice cubes. Start whipping at a lower speed and gradually increase the speed. Whip the cream at the highest speed for 3-4 mins until there are soft peaks. Add icing sugar in batches and keep whipping until there are firm peaks. Finally fold in vanilla essence. Keep the whipped cream covered and refrigerate until ready to ice the cake.

2. Make a sugar syrup by dissolving the sugar in less than ¼ cup of water. Check for sweetness – if needed add more sugar. Cut a few cherries into smaller pieces and set aside.

3. Cut the cake through the middle and get two equal layers of cake. In the bottom most layer, sprinkle few teaspoon of sugar syrup and let the cake soak it up. Put a big blob of whipped cream and spread it evenly all over the cake. Sprinkle cut cherries pieces all over.

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4. Place the other half of the cake and sprinkle rest of the sugar syrup until the cake looks moist and soaked up. Put a big blob of whipped cream again and spread it evenly with a serrated knife and ice the sides of the cake too. Wipe off any extra cream.

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5. Decorate with whipped cream as you please and place whole pitted cherries on top of the cake. Finally add chocolate shavings on top of the cake and press some all around the edges too. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve!

Note –

Don’t over fold the cake batter or it might not raise properly.
Oven timings and temperatures vary from one oven to another. Keep a close eye on the cake while it is baking.
To prepare the cake tin, grease with butter or oil. Dust it with all-purpose flour and tap the tin gently to remove the extra flour. Alternatively, line the cake tin with baking paper – easy to remove the cake later.
To whip the cream correctly, make sure the cream is cold – so are the beaters and the bowl. Make sure your kitchen is not too hot, or else the whipping cream may not hold its shape.
I used ready to use pitted cherries. If you have tinned cherries, remove the pits and use the cherry water to sprinkle on the cake base.
To get the chocolate shavings, I used a vegetable peeler and grated from a thick slab of chocolate. Alternatively tempered chocolate shavings can be used.
Since we are using whipping cream icing, the cake has to be completely cool or else the icing would begin to melt.
The cake has to be refrigerated for longer shelf life – stays fresh for 3-4 days in an air tight container.

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Taking this beauty to Fiesta Friday #139. Co-hosts this week are Antonia @ Zoale and Sandhya @ Indfused - both amazing cooks and bloggers 🙂

Eggless Black Forest Cake | Birthday Celebration Cakes