Several different oxtail recipes that I tried and modified led me to create this one. It is genuinely delectable!
| Prep Time: | 50 mins |
| Cook Time: | 35 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 55 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 1 9-inch cake |
Ingredients
- 2 ⅛ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups white sugar
- ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 (20 ounce) cans pitted sour cherries
- 1 cup white sugar
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups heavy whipping cream
- ⅓ cup confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans; line bottoms with parchment paper. Place a medium bowl in the refrigerator to chill.
- Whisk flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat until combined. Pour cake batter into the prepared pans.
- Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Cool layers in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Run a paring knife around edges to loosen and invert carefully onto racks to cool completely, 1 to 2 hours.
- While cake layers bake, drain cherries for topping, reserving 1/2 cup juice. Combine reserved juice, cherries, sugar, and cornstarch in a 2-quart saucepan. Cook, stirring constantly, over low heat until thickened. Stir in vanilla. Let cool at room temperature for 30 minutes. Transfer to the refrigerator to cool completely before assembling cake.
- Combine whipping cream and confectioners’ sugar for frosting in the chilled medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form.
- Split each cake layer in half horizontally using a long serrated knife. Tear one layer into crumbs; set aside. Gently brush loose crumbs off top and sides of remaining layers using a pastry brush or your hands. Reserve 1 1/2 cups frosting for piping decorations on cake; set aside.
- To assemble, place one cake layer on a cake plate. Spread with 1 cup frosting; top with 3/4 cup cherry topping. Top with second cake layer; repeat layers of frosting and cherry topping. Top with third cake layer and frost sides of cake.
- Pat reserved cake crumbs onto sides of cake. Spoon reserved 1 1/2 cups frosting into a pastry bag fitted with a star decorator tip. Pipe around top and bottom edges of cake. Spoon remaining cherry topping on top of cake.
- Store covered in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 662 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 87 g |
| Cholesterol | 130 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 8 g |
| Saturated Fat | 16 g |
| Sodium | 342 mg |
| Sugars | 62 g |
| Fat | 34 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
It was dry and did not taste very good
It was such an easy process, explained well and my fam loved it!
I think this cake has to be the best; I think this should win an Emmy Award. Seriously.
aaaamazing 10/10 will do again!
Black Forest has been one of my favourites since I was young. This recipe, the first that came up on my search was far from a real Black Forest cake. Cake was not as fudgey and moist as I would have expected. Sour cherries are just not available in Canada and since one is essentially making pie filling anyway and the canned version is already tart it works perfectly add a touch of lemon juice and vanilla to get the tin flavour out. I have never in my life seen or heard of using the crumbs to coat the sides of the cake but I guess is a chinsy version of using grated chocolate…….I will stick with grated chocolate myself. Overall a good basic recipe for a beginner baker or for the kid bakers or at the very least a basic how too. Make your own deep chocolate cake for the base cake. Secondly the whipped cream recipe used here will likely fall within a day without some sort of stabilizer like skim milk powder or cream of tarter to allow it to hold for a couple days. In the end maybe just use an entirely different recipe or make your own adjustments as most here seem to be doing.
I’ve never had a black forest cake so i’m not sure if it’s authentic tasting but i made it for my moms birthday and she was very happy . Instead of crumbling a whole layer of cake for the outside, i just shaved off the sides so it could still be four layers. also, for the whipped icing i recommend adding merengue powder so the icing can stiffen and not become liquid overnight and to avoid the cake collapsing. I put about 3 teaspoons and it worked like a charm
I loved making this cake! Beautiful and delicious!❤️- Cindy R. in Matthews, NC
It was very easy to follow the video and bake the cake. The cake came out really good. It was moist and delicious.
Didn’t pipe but followed all the other steps.
This is my third time ever making a cake from scratch and my family LOVED IT! Even though it is not mentioned in the recipe , many people commented about making the cherry filling first! Definitely do it, so it has more time to cool down! Also save some of the drained cherry juice so you can brush some on your layers before you begin to assemble your cake. My cherries seemed alittle banged up from the can, I don’t know why ♀️ But it didn’t affect the taste.I definitely will be making this recipe again ☺️
I Love Cake And I Love This Recipe .
I highly recommend following the advice of other reviewers and myself when I say: 1) cooking the cherry filling (and the cakes for that matter) at least a day beforehand to cool 2) using gelatin to stabilize the whipping cream 3) using the additional cake layer instead of crumbling it because it looks prettier 4) maybe even sprinkling shredded chocolate flakes on top like I did? 5) putting a cherry syrup in the cake, as it would have been VERY dry without it.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a Black Forest cake before so I can compare with others. But it was requested and I found this recipe. I must say, we all enjoyed eating it! And it is very impressive to make/look at. Crazy – I forgot the vanilla in the cake portion, but it still turned out fine. I’m sure it would’ve been better tho! I took 1 star off just because for my taste, I think I would’ve liked it to be a tad sweeter. (I don’t think the vanilla would’ve affected that.) Or maybe it would’ve, in which case I’d give it 5 stars. But other people liked it bc it wasn’t too sweet. It was relatively easy to make, impressive, and quite delicious.
I made this cake & was disappointing. The cake was dry. I have a much better recipe for a chocolate cake. Also couldn’t find sour cherries so I had to substitute canned cherry pie filling. For all the work & expense & time if I make again I’ll be using my own chocolate cake recipe,
Did 4 layers instead, chopped up semi sweet chips in food processor froze then did sides. Also used 2 cans cherry pie filling , so can skip a step! Brushed layers with substitute of vanilla vodka and used leftover cherry goop from filling as no Kirsch available. Chilled in between whipped cream and chocolate application. Came out great!! Will decorate with cherries on top of piped whipped cream on top but cake top wouldn’t fit so left until presentation. It’s my 64th birthday cake reminiscent of my time in Bavaria in USAF , used my birthday present, a stand mixer, not too sweet very moist!
Came out so good. Thanks a ton.
i totally love this recipe, this cake has been on my bucket list to make for a very long time . i choose this recipe and it turned out amazing. my picture will not load but it tastes amazing and a picture would not do it justice anyway hehe, i’m gonna make it again very soon.
Great recipe! The sweet and chocolatey cake combined with the slightly sweet whipped cream and cherries makes for the perfect combination. The heavy and light textures make for a great combination also.
Turned out great. Love that the icing is so easy to make.
Very good and easy to make, I replaced the cherries with just cherry pie fill as I could not find pitted cherries.
Heaven on Earth!