Mini Black Forest Gateaux

First things first, preheat your oven to 180°C/ 160°C Fan/Gas Mark 4. Grease and line a 30x20cm rectangular baking tin. 

Pop the flour, Baking Powder, Bicarbonate of Soda, Cocoa Powder and Sugar in a large bowl and mix together. Make a well in the centre. 

Next up, in a separate bowl mix together the eggs, milk, oil and Vanilla Extract. Pour the wet mixture into the well in the centre of the dry ingredients and gently begin the fold together. Mix together until all combined and your mixture is smooth.

Pour your mixture into your prepared tin and smooth the top. Bake for 30-35 minutes until risen, to test your cake is baked insert a skewer into the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean, your cake is baked! 

Whilst your cake is baking it’s time to make a cherry drizzle for your cake. Drain the cherries from the tin, using you keep the juices. Pour about 150ml of juice into a pan and add 1tbsp of water to loosen the juice. Gently heat up until the juice has loosened and is a nice pouring consistency, add more water if required. Once the cake is baked pour the cherry drizzle over the top and allow to soak into the sponge.

Leave your cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove and leave on a wire rack to cool completely.

Once your cakes are cooled, it’s time to turn them into lovely mini gateau’s! Using a round cutter about 6 cm in diameter cut 12 circles out of the sponge. If your cake rounds are not level use a serrated knife to gently level them off. 

Pop the cream into a large bowl add the icing sugar and Vanilla Extract and whisk your cream until soft peaks form. Pop and few spoonfuls of cream into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle. Pop the Cocoa Powder into the remaining cream and mix through to create a lovely chocolatey cream mixture. Pop into a piping bag and cut off the end of the piping bag to create a 1 cm hole in the end. 

Pipe rings of whipped chocolatey cream onto 6 cake rounds and place a couple of tinned cherries on top. Pop the other cake rounds on top to sandwich the chocolatey cream and cherries. 

Pipe the remaining cream over the tops and sides of the mini cakes a smooth out using a palette knife.

Now it’s time to create the chocolate curls. Using a vegetable peeler scrape the peeling down the sides of the chocolate bar and watch the chocolate curls form! 

Using your hand press the chocolate curls around the sides of the cake and sprinkle over the top. 

Finally pipe a swirl of whipped cream onto the top of each mini gateau and pop a cherry on top!

Tah-dah you lovely little black forest gateau are ready to enjoy, make sure you store in the fridge until you are ready to serve!