Schwarzwalder birthday cake

For my moms birthday I wanted to make something nice. For my dad's birthday I made the Oscar cake with an extra layer of panna cotta on the inside. Just to give it a different twist. Initially I wanted to make the same for my mom's birthday, but when I looked online I stumbled on this schwarzwalder cake made by Rudolph van Veen. I knew this had to make this cake. 

First I started with watching the video in which Rudolph shows how to make the cake. Then I went to the store to get the rest of the ingredients I needed.  

After that it was baking time. 

I started with making the cookie dough since this has to be chilled for a bit. This recipe was quite straight forward and all I needed was:
- 300 gr flour
- 200 gr butter
- 100 gr sugar
- 1 egg
oven temperature 180C

I put all the ingredients in a bowl and kneed them till it forms a dough. This dough I put in the fridge to chill.

After that I stared on the chocolate biscuit:
- 250 gr dark chocolate
- 125 gr butter
- 3 eggs separated in yolks and whites
- 125 gr brown sugar
- 80 gr self rising flour
- 50 gr almond powder
oven temperature 200C

I started with melting the chocolate and the butter on a double boiler. Then I whisked the egg yolks with some sugar till fluffy and mixed this into the chocolate. I carefully incorporated the flour and the almond powder in the chocolate mixture. In the meantime I mixed the egg whites with the rest of the sugar till fluffy. To this I incorporated the chocolate and spread the mixture out on a baking tray. I baked it for about 15-20 minutes till the biscuit was fully baked and let it cool.

This recipe was too much for my baking tray resulting in a thick layer of chocolate biscuit. Next time I would half the recipe and half the banking time.

While the biscuit was baking I took the cookie dough out of the fridge and put it in my baking pan. As I didn't want to waste any dough or do anything else with it, my cookie layer was a bit thicker then the recipe called for. Next time I would just half the cookie recipe. I baked the cookie till it was golden. I think it took about 30-40 minutes because it was a thick slice. This also had to be cooled.

For the cherry stuffing I needed:
- 200 ml whipping cream
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 130 gr cherries in a jar
- 1 gelatin sheet soaked in water

Because I had more cherries (and again didn't want the rest to go to waste) I doubled the recipe. I made the cherry stuffing twice since the first time the whipped cream didn't turn out the way I wanted to. What I did was whipping up the whipped cream with the sugar, heating up some of the cherry juice, to this I added the cherries and the gelatin and this all I mixed into the whipped cream. As it had to much juice the cream started to curdle and I had to through it all away. 

The second time I added the cherries (without the juice) to the whipped cream first and then slowly incorporated the juice. This gave a slightly better result. Next time I will wait till the gelatin has firm up the cherries and juice mixture first and then incorporate the whole thing with the whipped cream. 

Now it was time to ensemble the interior of the cake. I used a cutter to cut out 3 circles of the chocolate biscuit. As my baking tray was too small I could only get 2 whole circles and 2 half circles. I started with a layer of one whole circle of chocolate biscuit in the cutter. On this I sprinkled some amaretto liquor and I spread a layer of cherry whipped cream. I topped it with another layer of chocolate biscuit. Again another dash of liquor and a layer of cherry whipped cream and I finished with the two half circle of biscuit. Next time I would just use the two half circles for the middle layer, but I didn't know if I would have enough cherry whipped cream so I wanted to use the whole circles first, just in case. 

I placed the cookie on the interior and used a bigger cutter for the outside rim. This rim will be filled with chocolate mouse using this recipe:
- 110 ml milk (I didn't had milk so I used whipping cream instead, which worked just fine)
- 2 egg yolks
- 30 gr sugar
- 180 gr chopped pure chocolate
- 375 gr whipping cream

Actually I used this recipe times 1,5 since I didn't want to end up with not enough mouse. And luckily I did, because I didn't end up with much after using it all. 

I started with heating the milk or in my case the whipping cream. In the meantime I mixed the sugar in the egg yolks and to this I add a splash of warm whipping cream to avoid lumps. The egg mixture went into the rest of the warm whipping cream till the mixture was as thick as custard. Then I took the pan of the stove and mixed in the chocolate. While this mixture cools I started with whipping up the rest of the whipping cream. I poured the chocolate mixture into the whipped cream and mixed it till the chocolate is fully incorporated. I poured the mouse in a zip lock bag and after I took the cutter off my chocolate biscuit I piped the mousse all around the interior. Unfortunately my interior was slightly higher then the outer rim so my cake looked slightly different then the original. After everything was covered with the mouse I put the cake in the freezer.

The next day I made the chocolate glaze using the same recipe as the one from the Oscar cake"
- 280 ml water
- 360 gr sugar
- 260 gr whipping cream
- 120 gr cocoa powder ( I only had 100 gr, which also worked)
- 6 gelatin sheets soaked in water

I put all the ingredients in a pan and cooked it till it was ready. Then I added the gelatin and let it cool till about 40C.

I took the cake out of the freezer and start pouring the glaze all over starting with the rim. After the cake was covered I put it on a cake stand and held it on my lap while we drove to my mom's. Although it was an hour drive the cake was still frozen when she tried to cut it. I guess with a cake this big it needs at least two or three hours to defrost. The rest of the family couldn't wait so they digged in. Frozen or not it was a great birthday cake. Normally I would test a recipe first before making it for "real" so for a first timer it wasn't bad at all. Next time it would be much easier and faster to make this cake and I'm sure I will be making lots of them. It was that good!