Making a Black Forest drip cake

Cake. Some might say it's the answer to everything and I would have to agree. It certainly solves my problem of not knowing what to write about for my first proper blog post. I love to bake but with just two of us at home, it's pretty hard to justify baking a whole one most of the time. So while most people might think that making their own leaving cake is a chore, I jumped at the opportunity.

With a team of German to English translators and all-round Germanophiles, the theme was obvious. And there is one food that always makes me think of Germany – and no, it's not Currywurst (delicious though that is, not sure how it would work in a cake). When I was on my year abroad there, I practically lived off cherries. So rather selfishly, I chose to make a cake based on my favourite ingredients on the basis that it was inspired by a Black Forest gateau, the quintessential German bake.

That's not to say it's a traditional Black Forest gateau. I chose to use cherry buttercream rather that fresh cream, partly because it keeps for longer and mostly because I'm a buttercream fiend. I ate so much of it in the process of making the cake that I actually felt a little ill and couldn't eat anything else that evening. I also covered it with a chocolate drip because you can never have enough chocolate and scattered (i.e. very neatly and carefully arranged) lots of different fruits on top for a bit of variety.

I'm not going to write an actual recipe as I'm not actually great at measuring ingredients as I go but here is the process I followed so you can make a showstopper of your own:

1. Make your chocolate cake

I used a fudgy recipe from the Meringue Girls' Everything Sweet cookbook, which is ideal for this kind of recipe. If you want a simple chocolate cake recipe from the internet, you can't go wrong with Mary Berry. Leave your cakes to cool fully and then level and halve them if necessary (I didn't because I'm terrible at cutting in a straight line).

2. Make your buttercream

Confession time – I never measure ingredients for my buttercream. You generally see recipes stating two parts icing sugar to one part butter and I think that's about right. I also tend to add a little milk (cream is better though) and vanilla, and for this recipe, I added some syrup from a jar of morello cherries. A bit of an experiment but it gave a nice subtle flavour and the most beautiful colour.

3. Assemble your cake

Dot a little buttercream on a cake board (or a cheese board if you forgot to buy a cake board, like me) and place one layer of cake on top. The buttercream should stop it from moving too much. Spread a layer of cherry jam on the cake.

Very important – put your buttercream in a piping bag with a large round nozzle attached and pipe the buttercream on top of the jam in circles. I've tried spooning it on before but this is a much easier way of ensuring your cake stays level. Place the next layer on top (I also spread jam on the bottom of the second layer) and repeat if you have more than two layers.

Once you have constructed your cake, pipe the remaining buttercream onto the sides and top of the cake – no need to be neat here. Take a scraper or palette knife, smooth the buttercream and keep reapplying and repeating until you get the desired effect. Put the cake in the fridge until you're ready to apply the drip.

4. Melt your chocolate drip

There are a lot of different recipes for the famous chocolate drip online but I have only found one to be reliable: this one. Follow the instructions and you literally can't go wrong.

5. Decorate

I embellished my cake with berries, some of which I sprayed gold, just because. If you want to go all out, you can cover it with all kinds of chocolates and sweets.

Et voilà – a showstopping cake for any occasion. AND, I can personally confirm that it can survive a 50-mile drive unboxed in the passenger footwell of a car so you really don't have an excuse not to make it. Just try not to do any emergency stops.

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