Black Forest Cake

I wanted to trying my hand at a Black Forest Cake from a long time. But I wasn't able to find the cherries for this. Everywhere I could find fresh cherries. But for this cake I needed canned cherries which have a beautiful red color. Finally while checking out a new store I found a jar of cherries. I have used readymade cake mix for this. I had only 1/4th cake mix so I could make only a small cake.

Ingredients:

Betty Croker Super Moist Chocolate Fudge mix - 1/4 of the total quantity.
Pillsbury Funfetti Frosting (Vanilla flavor) - 1/2 of the jar
Maraschino Cherries - 10 oz jar
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Hershey's milk chocolate - 1 small bar

Method.

Heat 1/2 cup water and add 1/2 cup sugar and stir till it is dissolved. The sugar should be just dissolved in water. Don't heat for too long. Keep aside to cool.
Bake the cake as per the instructions on the box. Let it cool. The cake should be fully cooled before applying frosting. Once its cooled cut the cake horizontally into 3 equal discs.
Take the first disc. Drizzle few drops of sugar syrup on it. Apply the frosting. Spread frosting with the help of a knife. Put some chopped cherries. Then place the second layer on this. Follow the same procedure for the second one starting with sugar syrup, frosting, and cherries. Then place the final layer of the cake. Drizzle sugar syrup and spread frosting carefully on top as well as the sides of the cake covering the entire cake. Grate the chocolate on the top and on the sides. Place whole cherries on top. Refrigerate and enjoy.


This is the first frosted cake that I made. I thoroughly enjoyed making and eating it. But I was not fully satisfied with the frosting. It became a little hard on refrigerating. Next time i am planning to use whipped cream for frosting.

Update (20/Feb/2009)
Made a 2-layer black Forest cake for our Wedding Anniversary. This time I used Cool Whip for the frosting and Cherries from the Cherry Pie Filling .
I liked this icing more than the previous one but for the cherries I think Maraschino is a better choice as the Cherry Pie filling is slightly sour. This time I did not use the chocolate shavings and instead used some chocolate sprinkles.


Made another one for my birthday with the chocolate shavings.