Black forest gateau with cherry chocolate fudge icing: Fairycakemother goes to Parliament

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Save Our Woods is what happens when a government decides to sell off public forests and ancient woodlands. Fairycakemother made the official campaign cake to present outside Parliament to the Save Our Woods campaign.

Now, what cake could a lowly Fairycakemother make for such an important cause? Black forest gateau of course. I have been waiting for years for bottled Polish cherries to make it back onto the shelves and finally I found some last week. So black forest gateau it was.

I ADORE this cake. Chocolate cake. Cherries. Dark Chocolate. Cream. Made. In. Heaven. My cake needed to make a perilous journey on the London Underground at rush hour so cream was out and I decided upon a variation involving layers and cherry chocolate fudge icing.

It started with 4 chocolate cakes. I use a recipe adapted from my Be-Ro book 37th Edition. You can use Delia’s here – I used Pure instead of butter, halved the sugar and added a level tsp of baking powder, reduced the flour by a quarter and added cocoa instead. I made 4 cakes, which is double her recipe. Because you want flat cakes, not domed cakes, create a hollow in the centre of the levelled off batter in the cake tins before baking.

Wait until the cakes are completely cold before icing them. Very Important. You can make up the icing while they bake/cool. I make icing by feel rather than weighing ingredients so these aren’t very precise. If you aren’t used to making icing, please use a basic chocolate buttercream instead (take out some of the icing sugar and make up the weight with sieved cocoa). I don’t know if the quantities quoted for the linked recipe will be right enough for the cake, so stick with using it for sandwiching the cake together and go from there.

I used half a tub of Pure (vegan margarine), added about a quarter of a tub of Green and Black’s cocoa, sieved and beat well. I gradually added in most of what was left of my box of icing sugar (sieved) which is 2/3 of a 500g box ish. Then I beat in the juice left from stoning the cherries (we’ll get to the cherry part next). That was approx half an old fashioned tablespoon.

Put your bottom cake layer on a wire rack or cake turntable if you are A Very Lucky Person and possess one (keep the cake with the flattest smoothest top for the top layer). Smooth on a layer of icing. Now get your coveted jar of black cherries (or use fresh). Spoon some out and take out the pits (stones). This Is Messy. Do it over a bowl as you want to catch the juice and prevent sticky clean up. Pit as many cherries as you’d like to have for your layers. I was short on time so didn’t do very many so you could double the number you see in the photo. Sprinkle on chopped dark chocolate. Chop the chocolate as roughly or as finely as you desire or your teeth can manage. Repeat until the final layer.

I finished off the cake with a layer of icing, a very thick layer of icing sugar and some Save Our Woods (you have emailed your MP by now haven’t you? You can do it Here) decoration for their logo with some more dark chocolate, lime zest and a bit of piping. You could put more cherries on the top which would be totally delicious.

PS. You did sign the petition and email your MP didn’t you? Well done. I knew you would 🙂 Have some cake.

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