I am so thrilled to share this blog since  the Black Forest Cake is sincerely one of my old and evergreen favorites and to be able to make a vegan one is so very rewarding.

I will be honest that I did look up a lot of videos, read through the web and also took inspiration from my blogger friend Priya, who runs an amazing vegan blog that I closely follow before I attempted with my hands on trial and the outcome was so worthy. 🙂

The Black Forest Cake is a trademark dessert that originated and has been crafted ever since, in Germany. It is no secret, that this tempting king of cakes is a chocolate layered cake that is sandwiched and decorated on the top, with whipped cream and bright contrasting bright red cherries. Traditionally, Germany uses a special liquor that is extracted from tart cherries, to soak the sponge chocolate cake, which gives it it’s distinctive flavor. Although, many recipes today, do not mind adding some rum to the cake as a new flavorful twist.

For this “my” Vegan Black Forest Cake, here is the recipe:

1. For the Chocolate Cake

The dry stuffs-

• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of rich cocoa powder
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt

And the wet ingredients

• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup non diary milk/soy milk/water
• 1/2 cup flavorless vegetable oil.

To make:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 c or 350F.
2. Mix well all the dry ingredients separately and then one by one add the liquid ingredients into the dry batter.
3. Mix well manually or with a hand mixer to make a smooth batter and pour it into a greased & flour dusted round cake pan.
4. Tap the cake pan on the kitchen slab 2-3 times to get rid of air bubbles and set the pan in the oven to bake for 30-35 mins. Check with a skewer to ensure it comes out clean.
5. Once out of the oven, allow the cake to cool completely and after removing from the can pan, carefully slice the cake in two equal halves.

2. For the Cherry & Vanilla Whipped Frosting

• 1 can of full fat coconut cream.
• 1/2 cup of vegan butter or 4-6 tablespoon of coconut oil.
• 2 tbsp of powdered sugar or sweetener of your choice.
• 2 tsp of vanilla essence.
• 1 can of canned cherries

To make:

• Soften the butter at room temperature and with an electric beater, whip on high speed. During this time, keep adding the sugar gradually into the butter.
• Now add the cream of the coconut milk, the vanilla essence and whip on high speed to form the whipped cream frosting.
• Divide this frosting into 2 parts and put them back into the fridge before it starts to melt down.
•  One half of this whipped cream will be used to be mixed with the cherries and cherry syrup and the other half for the topping.

For the Cherry Syrup, I used the canned red cherries easily available at the grocery stores. 2-3 tbsp of this cheery and the cherry syrup needs to be mixed with the first half of the whipped cream that had been kept aside.

3. For the Dark Chocolate Ganache

The layer of the dark chocolate ganache adds richness to the cake and I couldn’t resist not using it. 🙂

• 1/2 slab vegan of dark chocolate. (the baking dark chocolates are mostly vegan for most that I have checked in their ingredient list.)
• 1/4 cup soy milk/non diary milk
• 1 tbsp of oil to add glaze.

To make:

• Keep the chocolate slab at room temperature and break them into roughly odd pieces.
• Put these chocolate pieces in a bowl and melt it on a double boiler or in a microwave, adding some milk.
• Beat the melted chocolate & milk, adding the oil to prepare the chocolate ganache and allow it to cool.

4. Layering of the Cake:

• Spread generously, the mixture of the whipped cream and the cherries on top of the first half of the chocolate cake and then gently sandwich it, by placing on top the other half of the cake.
• Dust off the cake to get rid of the crumbs and now coat the whole cake with the dark chocolate ganache and keep it in the refrigerator for at least  30 mins, to allow both the vanilla whipped cream and the chocolate ganache to cool and set.
• It’s now time to use the remaining part of the vanilla whipped cream. 🙂
• Give a generous coating of this whipped cream on the sides of the cake and with the remaining of it, filled in a piping bag, decorate the top surface of the cake along the border and the center, leaving room for the shower of chocolate shavings. 🙂

5. Chocolate Shavings

• ensure your chocolate bar is cold and solid enough. 🙂 And now that all you need to do  is grate it with a grater, getting an abundance of fine chocolate shavings. :).
• Set this back in the fridge to cool to prevent it from melting or becoming mushy.

6. Final Topping  ~ 😀

• With a handful of the chocolate shavings, coat the sides of the cake. The chocolate and the whipped cream spread helps the chocolate shavings hang on, just perfectly.
• The rest of the chocolate shavings are to generously spread on the top of the cake.
• Adorn the borders and the center of the cake, with some more cherries from your can and you can do so much more as your heart desires. ♥

And this Delight of ‘careless beauty’ is ready to be Served. Enjoy! 🙂