Carl loves Black Forest Cake, so for his birthday I decided to attempt to make a homemade one.  I think this is one of the easiest cakes in the world to make, so remember that if you’re ever tempted to buy one again…and this way also happens to taste better, if I do say so myself.

Easy Black Forest Cake

I love cake mixes for angel food cake but that wasn’t the texture I wanted here, so I made this moist, dense cake, which should quickly become your go-to chocolate cake when you need a basic cake, or when last minute guests are coming over and you only want to spend 5 minutes putting something in the oven – this is as quick as a cake mix and you can pronounce all the ingredients, and mix it all in one bowl!  Win, win, aaand win.

Black Forest Cake
 
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Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: 12

Ingredients
  • 5-MINUTE CHOCOLATE CAKE
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups cold water
  • ⅔ cup vegetable oil
  • ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp white vinegar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • FILLING:
  • 1 can cherry pie filling
  • TOPPING:
  • 4 Tbsp icing sugar (or more to taste)
  • 1 500mL carton whipping cream

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 8″ round cake pans or a 9×13” baking pan.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for cake. Beat with electric mixer on medium to high speed until well combined. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  3. Once cakes have cooled, if you’re really good with a knife, slice both cakes horizontally in half and make a 4-layer cake with cherry filling between each layer. (I know what happens to bagels when I attempt to slice them down the middle so I opted out of this step).
  4. Reserve a few cherries on paper towel to decorate the top of the cake and top the bottom layer with the rest of the can of cherry pie filling – the juice will run down the sides a bit but it will all be covered by the whipped cream eventually.
  5. For “icing”, combine whipping cream and icing sugar in a large mixing bowl and whip on medium-high speed until it holds fairly stiff peaks.
  6. Spread all over cake and decorate as desired…I just grated a square of baking chocolate to sprinkle on and topped with some extra dollops of whipped cream with cherries on top.

Notes
The chocolate cake alone is great for last minute guests – serve with ice cream and chocolate sauce or top with cherry pie filling and whipped cream for a “deconstructed” black forest cake.

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Homemade Black Forest Cake

Black Forest Cake

If this all sounds like too much work you could just make the cake in the 9×13 pan and serve squares topped with whipped cream and cherry pie filling and I’m sure it would be just as delicious!