Ingredients
Scale
For Sponge
- 200 g All-purpose flour
- 30 g Natural cocoa powder
- 6 g Baking soda
- 200 g Castor sugar
- 125 g Milk
- 125 g Water
- 50 g Oil
- 50 g Melted butter
- ½ tsp Vanilla essence
- For Cherry Compote
- 150 g Fresh cherries
- 5 g Lemon juice
- ½ tsp Lemon zest
- 23 g Castor sugar
- 1/8 tsp Salt
- 27 g Water
For Chocolate Mousse
- 120 g Whipping cream
- 40 g Dark coverture
- 15 g Fresh cream
For Chocolate Shavings
- Dark compound chocolate slab
For Frosting
- 100 g Sweetened whipping cream
For Decoration
- Fresh cherries
Instructions
For Sponge
- Preheat the oven to 180°C or 350° F (OTG mode: upper rod + Lower rod + fan). Grease and line 6-inch round tins with oil and place butter paper at the bottom.
- In a bowl, sieve all the dry ingredients together, which are all-purpose flour, natural cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar.
- In another bowl, add all the liquid ingredients, milk, water, oil, and melted butter, then mix.
- Now gradually add liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients in parts and mix until a smooth batter is formed and there is no lump.
- Transfer the batter into the prepared tins equally.
- Bake them at 180°C or 350° F (OTG mode: Lower rod) for 30-35 minutes or until the toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
For Chocolate Mousse
- In a bowl, melt the dark chocolate and warm fresh cream separately.
- Mix this warm cream in the chocolate till it’s smooth. Let it cool a little bit.
- Beat the whipping cream in a separate bowl with an electric hand beater. Once it reaches the soft peak stage, add the ganache and mix properly until you get a mousse-like texture.
For Cherry Compote
- Deseed the fresh cherries before making the compote.
- Now in a heavy bottom pan, add all the ingredients that are deseeded cherries, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and water. Cook them until all the sugar is dissolved and the cherries are soft.
For Soaking Syrup
- Add water to red wine and mix. Set aside for further use.
For Chocolate Shavings
- Using a vegetable peeler, start peeling the corner of the chocolate to get chocolate shavings.
For Frosting
- In a bowl, beat whipping cream with an electric hand beater until a soft peak is achieved.
Assembly
- After cooling the sponges, de-mold them from the tins carefully with a palette knife.
- Divide the sponges with a cake leveler into two parts.
- On the cake base, pipe some of the frosting and place one layer of sponge on top.
- Soak the sponge with the soaking syrup and pipe frosting around the edge of the sponge.
- Pipe chocolate mousse in the center and add cherry compote on top. Then, place another layer of sponge, and repeat the same process as we did with the first layer until we get four-layered cakes.
- Soak the top layer as well.
- Now crumb coats the cake by piping thin layers of frosting all over the cake and smoothing them out using a bent palette knife. Remove the excess with a scrapper.
- Keep it in the fridge for about 15 – 20 minutes until the frosting sets a bit.
- After 15 – 20 minutes, pipe frosting all over the cake again for final coating. Make sure that you have sharp edges at the top.
- Now, the pipe shell borders around the top edge with an open star nozzle.
- Now stick chocolate shavings all over the sides of the cake and the top center.
- Lastly, place fresh cherries on top around the border.
- Prep Time: 50 to 55 minutes
- Assembly Time: 20 to 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 to 35 minutes