Black Forest Gateau inspired by The Great British Bake Off

The Great British Bake Off started again this week and one of the bakes is a Black Forest Gateau, I decided to bake my own delicious take on the classic.  These Black Forest Chocolate Gateau was delicious and disappeared very quickly once the photos were taken.

The contestants on The Great British Bake Off had 3.5 hours to bake and decorate their cake.  It took me slightly longer than that as I had a teething baby, 3 older children, a Tesco grocery delivery and several loads off washing to deal with whilst baking and decorating my cake.  

My cake is 4 layers of chocolate sponge with ganache and cherry jam swirled whipped cream between them.  I did not use any Kirsch in my cake as my children were going to be eating it and I thought it best to leave it out.  

Chocolate Layer Cake

I baked two of these cakes, cut them in half and filled them with chocolate sponge with ganache and cherry jam swirled whipped cream.

200g self raising flour
50g cocoa powder
125g softened butter
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or 2 tsp vanilla extract
275g caster sugar
2 large free range eggs
160ml lukewarn water

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan. Grease and line a 22cm/9 inch cake tin, ensuring the paper comes 2 inches/5cm above the top edge of the cake tin.

Put all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat with a stand mixer or electric hand held beaters until mixture is smooth. Beat for 3 to 5 minutes until the mixture is lighter in colour. Pour mixture in to prepared cake tin and level the top.

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes until cake is cooked and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool the cake in the tin for 15 minutes to half an hour before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely.

Split the cake horizontally into 2 layers. Spread chocolate ganache on one half and cherry jam swirled whipped cream on the other, sandwich them together.  Repeat the process with the second cake and top with ganache to finish.

Chocolate Ganache

300g dark chocolate,
200ml double cream

Put the cream in a saucepan over a moderate heat. Heat until almost boiling, remove from the heat and stir through the chocolate until a smooth mixture forms. Leave the ganache to cool until it reaches a spreadable consistency.

Many thanks to Tesco who are sponsoring this year’s Great Bloggers Bake Off, hosted by Mummy Mishaps, and who are kindly providing gift cards to buy the ingredients needed to take part in the challenges each week.  For more great recipe ideas check out the baking section on Tesco Real Food – there's loads of great baking recipes to help with your own culinary adventures.