Black Forest

double nickle black forest
Originally uploaded by Contrary Goddess.

ok, La asked for it. The recipe for a chocolate enough to kill you cake. Well, this is it.

Chocolate Cake
3/4 C butter
6 squared (1 oz. each) unsweetened chocolate
6 eggs
2 C sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 soft WW flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips (honestly, I usually just use the whole 12 oz. bag)

preheat to 350.

grease and flour two round cake pans, or a big rectangle. If you are planning on turning the cake out of the pan, line bottom with wax paper. (this is such a rich cake, I more often make a rectangle because it is easier to get a smaller piece)

Melt butter and chocolate together. Cool a bit.

In large bowl, beat eggs, add sugar and vanilla. Beat in cooled chocolate mixture. Sift flour and baking powder into chocolate mixture, then stir in. Lastly stir in chocolate chips.

Pour into prepared pans. Bake about 35 minutes. Remember that a chocolate cake is the very worst kind to over bake, so don't do that. Cool on wire rack. If removing from pans, do so after cooling for 5 minutes.

Icing
I usually make either this icing or one based on cream cheese. Personally I think this particular cake is better with the butter cream icing, and the carrot with the cream cheese icing. Please do not make icing using Crisco.

2/3 C softened butter
4 C 10X powdered sugar, sifted into softened butter
(make chocolate icing by sifting 1/3 C unsweetened cocoa into powdered sugar)

Mix as well as you can. Add vanilla extract if'n you like (mandatory if not chocolate). Add enough cream a little at a time until desired spreading consistency. Since I don't have a mixer, I have to be careful to not add too much cream. I figure not having a mixer makes up a little for eating the cake!

For cream cheese icing, I use 8 oz . of cream cheese and little to no cream. I flavored the carrot cake icing with cinnamon, to taste. For daughter's birthday I omitted the cinnamon and colored it blue then husband put a green fish on it for her!

The first time I did the black forest thing, that year had been a bumper crop for cherries and I had cherries from our trees in the freezer. More's the pity, last year wasn't a good year for our fruit and so the cherries in the photo were from boughten canned sour cherries. I just sweetened and thickened their water a bit, then flavored with not enough Jack Daniels (although I did use enough rum in the previous one). Obviously I don't make this any too often. There were cherries in the middle layer of this cake as well as on top.

As to what else is happening on the farm, well, it has definitely been March with temps all over the place, grass growing, maples blooming, sneezes sneezing. The garden is getting a start, with boughten onion plants (lots) and a few boughten cabbage plants, and lots more plants started from seed, and some of those already transplanted out. We've had some germination disappointments. We hear there are no Cobbler seed potatoes this year. We need to plow very soon. We severely cut back the pear trees this year. I think we lost the cherries. The blueberries are looking pretty good. I hope that maybe the mulberry tree made it, and we need to get down there and work on the strawberries. The chickens are laying (hooray!). I'd like to get another cow.