You don't need to be a guru to make a cake of two ingredients: chocolate and cherry. These products are so harmoniously combined with each other, that at the thought of cooking chocolate cake, the cherry itself asks in addition to its favorite dessert.
How many improvisation options on the theme “Chocolate Cake with Cherries” can be created depends on the imagination and knowledge of the basics of pastry making. If you get inspiration, you must give it a way out. Go to the kitchen boldly take on the job.
Chocolate Cake with Cherries - Basic Technological Principles
For almost any cake, flour, sugar, eggs, fresh butter, milk or cream will be needed. These products must be fresh, of the highest quality - the successful outcome of one and a half or even three hours work in the kitchen depends on these criteria. A mandatory touch for any pastry “piece” is vanilla or other flavors, which every hostess will definitely have. In addition to vanilla, citrus, cognac or rum, almond aroma for chocolate and cherries: this is a classic.
The list of ingredients can be expanded on the basis of the author's intention and the available stocks, but the products already listed are enough to make shortbread, biscuit, air, puff pastry for the cake, as well as cream, butter, custard and protein cream to combine the base of the cake. Of the four types of dough and the same number of cream preparation options, it is already possible to make at least ten or more recipes, relying on your own taste and experience in conducting such experiments. Choose options, starting with the simplest, and gradually complicate the task. Disappointment must not be allowed to overtake the pastry chef at the height of his work: making a cake is not a very complicated process, but in it every stage is important. If not enough time and attention will be paid to one of the technological moments, then all the work will be spoiled along with the mood and self-esteem. Here are the steps:
Dough preparation;
Baking cakes;
Preparation of cream, glaze, fudge, decor elements;
Compound cake (cake impregnation, assembly, creaming, fudge or icing);
Surface decoration.
If you take up work for the first time, divide it into parts, calculate forces and time.
Prepared in advance inventory, tools, tools - also one of the components of success. For an amateur pastry chef, it’s enough to have a minimum set of tools. If you like to bake cakes and do it often, then, apart from the usual equipment that every hostess has in the kitchen, it is advisable to purchase:
baking dishes of different diameters and configurations;
Pastry bags on a polyethylene basis (5-6 pieces);
Metal nozzles with different cross sections for drawing with cream: conical straight, star-shaped, for drawing leaves and petals. When you have mastered the work with a minimum set, you can add other attachments to the set in order to expand the possibilities for performing more complex drawings;
Stand for the cake on a rotating leg, which will facilitate the work at registration;
Cutter for smooth cutting of cakes;
Spatula for smoothing cream surface.
This necessary minimum for pastry work is also useful for preparing and decorating other dishes, which can be easily seen in the near future.
Let's try, approximately, to sketch a few variants of a chocolate-cherry cake, without a long search for some new and unusual recipe. If you leave cherries and chocolate as a basis for making cakes, glazes, creams or decorations, then there is still plenty of space for creativity.
For example, you can experiment in this direction:
Chocolate sponge cake with cherry cream;
Chocolate icing with air dough and cherry cream;
Chocolate shortbread dough for the cake and cherry jam with protein or butter cream;
Cottage cheese and chocolate base with cherry cream jelly.
In any of the proposed improvisations, you will not have to blush for your author's masterpiece - cherry and chocolate attract the attention of the taste buds so much that the rest of the cake can be considered only by the most demanding professionals and gourmets.
1. Chocolate cake with cherry - “Greetings from Prostokvashino!”
The good news is that the complexity of making this cake is low, even a novice can handle this recipe.
Ingredients:
Extra butter 240 g
Whole milk cottage cheese 400 g
Milk 275 ml
Culinary cream (33%) for decoration 100 g
Gelatin 25 g
Sugar 120 g (for cottage cheese soufflé) + 350 g (for cherry jelly)
Water 200 ml
Vanillin, crystalline 8 g
Pitted Cherry 500 g
Orange syrup 100 ml
Rum Essence 20 mg
Agar Agar 5 g
Chocolate 150 g
Shortbread 300 g
Fresh oranges slices, cocktail cherry, fresh mint or lemon balm leaves - for decor
Cooking Technology:
Bake does not have to, but for the cake will require 2 detachable forms, with a diameter of 28 cm
Put ready-made shortbread biscuits in a bowl, chop it into crumb and pour in orange syrup, 150 ml, cooled to room temperature, boiled milk, 5 mg of essence, add 100 g of softened butter. Kill the mass with a blender and, having shifted to the bottom of the mold, level the surface with a spatula or a spatula.
Cream soufflé:
Put cottage cheese, 100 g of butter, vanilla powder (4 g), 5 mg of rum extract, sugar into the bowl of the blender. Turn on the blender to maximum power and whip the cream. In 100 ml of milk, dissolve the gelatin, strain and pour in a thin stream into the curd-creamy mass.
Shift half of cottage cheese soufflé on a layer of biscuits, and put the second part into a different shape, without foundation. Both blanks clean in the fridge.
Pour water into non-stick utensils, add 350 g of sugar. Boil the syrup, removing the foam. When it becomes transparent, add the cherry. Boil again, removing the foam. Add the agar-agar, let the jelly cool to 40 ° C. Dividing the cherry jelly in half, pour it into forms, on top of the soufflé. Clean again in the cold until it freezes.
Remove both cooked semi-finished products from the molds. First, on a sand base, lay on a stand. Sprinkle a layer of jelly bottom water with rum essence, immediately put the top part so that it is better glued to the wetted surface. Start decorating. Side and side of the cake with a pastry bag and nozzles decorate the bows of whipped cream. Symmetrically lay on the surface of the cherry for a cocktail, slices of oranges, leaves of fresh greens.
Draw parchment paper butterflies. Place the sheet on a metal tray, pre-freezing it, so that the pattern of melted chocolate lays strictly along the contour without spreading. From a thin cone nozzle pour the melted chocolate over the pattern. Clean for five minutes in the cold. After gently remove the chocolate blade patterns and lay them on the cake.
Cake - eat, cherry and chocolate are present. Enjoy your meal!
2. Sandy chocolate cake with cherries and protein cream
Ingredients:
Cocoa 40 g
Flour 260 g
Margarine 140g
Sugar 100 g
Yolks 2 pcs.
Lemon zest, fresh 25 g
Saffron 2 g
Cherry jam 250 g
Candied (for decor)
For protein cream:
Proteins 2 pcs.
Powder 60 g
Lemon juice 10 ml
For custard:
Flour 25 g
Cocoa 50 g
Sugar
Eggs 2 pcs.
Sugar 120g
Oil 240 g
Vanilla 4 g
Rum (dessert wine) 75 ml
Food colorings
Fruit Essence
Cooking:
Sift flour for dough and divide in half, adding in one part sifted cocoa with vanilla powder, and in the other - brewed in boiling water, saffron and fresh lemon zest. Sugar, yolks and margarine are also divided into two parts. Knead two types of dough, divide each of them into 3 parts. Roll each part in a square with a side of 26 cm. The thickness of each layer is no more than 0.5 cm, as the dough rises during baking.
Try to roll out the dough quickly, so that the fat does not have time to melt. It is better to get it out of the refrigerator as each cake is ready, roll it out and immediately send it on the pan to the oven heated to moderate temperature. On each cake before baking, make small notches with a knife or pierce them with a fork. For quick cooking, it is advisable to work with two baking sheets. Do not rush to remove the cake from a hot pan. Give each cake time to cool. Remove with a long and wide shoulder blade. Chocolate Custard:
Beat eggs with sugar. Pour hot milk (90-95 ° C) into them in a thin stream, without interrupting the intensive mixing. Combine the flour with cocoa powder and sift the mixture into a hot mass. Whisk until smooth. Put the dishes with cream in the water bath and cook until thick. Add vanilla and rum, remove from heat. To quickly cool the mass, you can move the dish to another container filled with ice, continue beating. When the custard is completely cool, add the softened butter with the pieces, continue to beat the cream until done.
You can already collect the cake in half. Coat the cooled cakes with cherry jam. Apply a layer of chocolate cream on top of the jam. Lay the layers on top of each other, alternating chocolate and lemon cakes with saffron between them.
Protein Cream:
Pour cooled squirrels into a dry and clean bowl and beat them at high speed. When the foam becomes stable, add 30 ml of lemon juice mixed with fruit essence or vanilla powder (to taste), gradually add sifted powder.
Decorate the cake with protein cream, otsadiv it on the surface and sides of the cake. From above protein cream cream with powdered and cocoa, dividing the surface of the cake with a conventional line diagonally. Border lay candied fruit. For the decor, you can use food dyes, curly pieces of colored marmalade.
3. Chocolate cake with cherry cream on a biscuit basis
Ingredients:
Fresh eggs (D-1) 4 pcs.
Sugar 125 g
Flour 140 g
Cocoa 25 g
Vanilla sugar
Cream, cherry:
Yolks 6 pcs.
Sugar 250 g
Boneless Cherry 150 g
Cream 33% 200 ml
Gelatin 20 g
Chocolate glaze, white:
White chocolate (with natural cocoa butter) 250 g
Cream, pastry 75 ml
120 g powder
Vanilla powder
Rum (or “Amaretto”) 50 ml
For decor:
Cherry Marmalade or Jelly
Chocolate chips or medallions (milk or black)
Topping “hearts” of sugar glaze, red
Cooking:
Turn on the oven and heat it to 180 ° C. Prepare a round detachable shape (28 cm), brushing it with oil and proceed to the preparation of sponge cake. Separate the whites from the yolks. If there are two mixers, then you can save time by whipping proteins in a stationary mixer, and yolks with sugar - by hand. Mix flour with cocoa, sift, add to the yolk mass. Add flavors to it: vanilla or fruit essence to taste. In the finished dough gently shift the proteins, whipped to a stable foam. Stir the mass with a spatula, trying not to destroy the air bubbles, immediately put the dough in the form, filling it in? parts of the volume. Bake a sponge cake. Do not open the oven for the first 20 minutes. Check the readiness of biscuit can be no earlier than in 25-30 minutes. Remove the finished sponge cake from the oven and put it on the grid until it is completely cooled. From the form it can be removed only in the cold. After 5-6 hours, the biscuit can be cut into 2 layers of the same thickness, along a horizontal line.
One cake again put in the form.
Prepare the cherry cream:
Blender smash the pitted cherries. Heat the cream and pour the yolks in, whipped with sugar. Pour in a thin stream, while mixing the contents of the pan with a whisk, very quickly. Immediately add a mashed cherry to the thickened mass. Boil for 7-10 minutes, stirring continuously. For reliability, so that the cream does not burn, and to evenly warm up, use the cooking method in a water bath. Cool the cream to 25-30 ° C, enter the dissolved gelatin (20 g per 150 ml of warm water). Beat the mixture until smooth and pour over the biscuit cake in the pan. Move the mold to cold to set. As soon as the cream hardens, lay the next cake, brush with cherry jam.
Prepare white chocolate icing:
Melt the white chocolate, pre-grinding it into crumb and heating the cream and 40-45oC. Add powder, flavor, rum and whip mass.
Remove the cake from the mold, put it on a stand and pour over the white chocolate glaze. When the surface hardens, decorate with dark chocolate and colored sugar glaze. Wrap a side of transparent jelly.
4. Chocolate Student Cake with Cherry
Ingredients:
Chocolate cream (dry mix) 300 g
Eggs 2 pcs.
Flour 150 g
Sour cream (kefir, yogurt) 250 ml
Soda 15 g
Sugar 100 g
Vinegar 50 ml
Flavoring - to taste
Cocoa (100%) 30 g
Cherry jam 400 g
Milk chocolate 2 tiles of 100 g each
Oil 70 g
Cooking Technology:
This cake is an inexpensive option and very fast to prepare.
Combine the dry mixture with sifted flour, sugar, vanilla powder and cocoa. Beat the eggs, add sour cream, soda, quenched with vinegar. Knead the dough. The consistency is like pancakes.
Grease the baking dish. Preheat the oven. Divide the dough into 5 pieces. Pour into the mold a layer with a thickness of not more than 0.5 cm.
Cool the cake layers with cherry jam (the cherry should be seedless).
Melt the chocolate by adding butter, whisk. It should make a glaze with gloss. Beat with a whisk. To shine, add dessert wine or brandy, not more than a tablespoon. Warm chocolate mass pour the cake. Let it stand for 3-4 hours.
5. Chocolate cake with cherry “Caprice”
Ingredients:
Air and nut dough:
Proteins 250 g (5-6 pieces)
Almond (kernels) 280 g
Flour 70 g
Sugar 120g
Vanilla powder to taste
Cherry extract or liqueur
Cream soufflé:
Yolks 5 pcs.
Orange (zest) 50 g
Sugar 200 g
Oil 80 g
Milk (or drinking cream) 100 ml
Rum or cognac extract 5 mg
Gelatin 11 g
Cherry jelly with champagne:
Fresh cherry juice 100 ml
Champagne 150 ml
Cherries or other berries (for decoration) 50-70 g
Agar Agar 4g
Sugar 180 g
Pastry cream 100 g
Chocolate 80 g
Candied coconut chips for decoration
Technology:
Who is not ready for testing - reduce the process of making cakes by buying 500-600 g of ready-made meringues: you will also have an interesting option, in haste. For those who decide not to give up, let's start with a description of the technology of making almond dough.
Almond cakes.
First cook the molds and the oven. For quick cooking, take 3 identical shapes, or one large sheet that can fit three cake layers. Otherwise, all the ingredients for the preparation of the dough will have to be divided into three parts, and prepare them as each cake is prepared. Draw 3 circles on the parchment sheet, on the reverse side, spread it with oil and line the bottom of the baking dish. In the oven, set the temperature to 120 ° C. Almonds (you can substitute other nuts if desired) need to be crushed into flour so that oil does not start to stand out. Of course, it is convenient to do this in a combine, to kill with a blender, but it is better to chop and pound in a mortar, gradually adding sifted flour. Nuts should be pre-cleaned and dried in the oven or on a hot dry frying pan. Add flavorings to the nut mass.
Beat the squirrels, as usual, until a strong foam is formed with unobtrusive air bubbles. When whipping protein mass gradually add sugar. Combine with nut flour. Place the dough in a pastry bag and drop it into the molds, along the contour drawn. The test layer should not be thicker than one centimeter. After baking, the cakes will increase in volume by 2 times.
If the oven is not equipped with a fan, then after about 20 minutes, when a light blush appears on the surface of the cake, reduce the temperature by 20-25 ° C, and after another 10 minutes turn off the oven, slightly open the door, but do not reach the semi-finished products to cool completely.
Ready-made cakes should dry within 10-12 hours. After remove from them the parchment.
Cream soufflé “Bird's milk”.
After working with complex almond dough, all other stages will seem absolutely simple.
Smash the yolks with half the sugar. Boil the milk with the second half of the sugar for the cream souffle, add the zest, vanilla or other flavor to taste. Enter gently yolks, cook while stirring with a whisk until thick. Chill. Combine the resulting mass with softened butter. In warm water, dissolve the gelatin, add it to the cream. All this time, do not stop beating. The cream should increase in volume by 2.5-3 times.
Put the cake in a detachable cake mold and half of the cream on it. Top - second cake, and lay out the rest of the cream. Cover it with a third semi-finished product.
Transfer the form to cold for 1.5-2 hours. When frozen, put fruit or candied fruits on it.
Cook the cherry jelly. Boil half the sugar for the jelly and cherry juice, add the agar-agar, and when the jelly cools to 40 ° C, add chilled champagne. Immediately pour the jelly onto the surface of the cake and put it another hour and a half into the cold. After transferring from the mold to the stand and decorate the sides with whipped cream. Melt the chocolate, apply the mesh over the jelly surface.
6. Chocolate cake with cherries with butter cream and mirror icing
Ingredients:
Biscuit dough: see recipe number 3 (but without cocoa)
Butter cream:
Powder 90 g
Cocoa 50 g
Crystal Vanillin 2 g
Cream (33%) 200 ml
For impregnation: cherry liqueur (or tincture + sugar + water)
For fruit glaze:
Fresh Cherry Juice 250 ml
Citric acid (for clarification of cherry juice) 10 g
Gelatin 10 g
Granulated sugar 350 g
Eggs (D-1) 4 pcs.
Cream, pastry 200 ml
Chocolate butterfly decor and cocktail cherry for decoration
Cooking:
Ready cooled biscuit cake mix cut into layers, no more than 1 cm thick, sprinkle each of them with cherry liqueur. Determine the amount of impregnation by taste, but remember that a thin and too wet cake will be difficult to shift, and light cream from the large amount of moisture in the cake will quickly lose its fluffiness and blur, draining on the side.
Prepare creamy chocolate cream:
Mix powder, vanillin (powder) and cocoa, sift.
Whip the cream, pre-cooling them, gradually increasing the speed, as they thicken.
Add the dry mixture at the end of whipping, sifting through a strainer so that it is evenly distributed over the surface of the cream.
Take care not to interrupt the cream, so that the process of serum separation does not begin.
The amount of powder and cocoa in the cream can be adjusted as desired - the quality of whipping the cream is not affected, but do not be zealous that the volume of dry ingredients does not reach a critical mass and does not exceed the volume of cream.
Assemble the cake by smearing each biscuit cake with butter cream. Give it 1.5-2 hours for the layers to soak, after which the cake must be moved to the freezer: in order to cover it smoothly with icing, you need a very cooled surface.
Preparation of glaze:
Natural fresh cherry juice (you can squeeze frozen cherries) filter and pour into a saucepan. Add sugar (250 g), and boil the syrup until the sample is “thicker”. At the end of cooking add citric acid. Do not forget to remove the foam. On the sides of the dishes, in which the syrup is boiled, crystals can form, so it must be boiled, be sure to cover it with a lid, and in order to follow the process, use glass. Ready syrup set aside for a while. To the yolks add half the remaining sugar and rub until it is white. Beat the yolks into the syrup, heat the mass in the bath until it thickens and, at the same time, without stopping the beating. When the mass thickens, remove it from the stove and continue to beat until cool. The container at this time is more convenient to move to a bowl filled with ice to speed up the process.
In a clean, dry and deep bowl, beat the chilled proteins with the remaining sugar. In a stable protein foam, without stopping the beating, pour in a thin stream of dissolved and filtered gelatin.
Separately, also whip the cream in clean dishes, combine them with the protein mass, and then, adding a little yolk mixture, mix the frosting with a spatula until smooth.
Move the cake to a stand installed on a wide dish (icing will flow). Cover the prepared glaze, move it for half an hour in the refrigerator. After the icing hardens, decorate the surface with cherries and chocolate butterflies.
Chocolate Cake with Cherries - Tips & Tricks
The classic shortbread dough, without the addition of eggs and water, consists of one part of sugar, two parts of butter or margarine and three parts of flour. Remember this proportion: 1: 2: 3. This is the basis of shortbread dough, where sugar and fat are wet (!) Ingredients, they are added in the same amount as flour. If you want to change something in the recipe for perfect shortbread dough, strictly adhere to this proportion. If it is necessary for the dough to become chocolate, adding cocoa, reduce the flour content by exactly the same amount; adding eggs - add sugar and butter, in equal proportions. Sand dough will always be crumbly.
If you want to add eggs to the shortbread dough, it is better to use yolks. They will give a sandy product a pleasant golden hue. Egg whites weigh and tighten the shortbread dough. It is better to add them to unsweetened pastries, for a too wet filling to compact the dough.
