Eggless black forest pastry is made of three layers of chocolate cake with mascarpone cream and cherry compote. All three components of the cake has different textures and when you take a bite of all three together, it just gives you an amazing experience.
The cake is filled with a combination of mascarpone cream and high fat dairy cream which gives you the rich mouth feel. You can either source the mascarpone from stores or make it at your home following a simple method. I will get you the link at the bottom of this post. Don’t forget to check it out.
Cake for Eggless Black Forest Pastry
I prepared the cake batter first as it needs time to bake and cool down. By the time it is cooling down, you can make the compote and cream. This is my oil based chocolate cake recipe I usually use for pastries. Even when served chilled, it doesn’t get dry. It just melts in the moth even when served chilled.
You can either bake it as a single cake and cut them to fit the ring or you can bake three different cakes, each for one layer in individual pans. It depends upon the availability of pans and your convenience.
For me, this felt like an easier way instead of searching for three pans of the same size. It may not be picture perfect, but it definitely makes your life easier. Use the leftover cake and cream to assemble jar desserts. It is a win win situation without any wastage.
Compote for the pastry
I usually make compote with just two ingredients. No other additives. Just fruit and sugar. You can do this with any fruit that has a bit of flesh. If the fruit is naturally sweet, you can even reduce sugar to one tsp.
Also even when tart fruits are used, they compensate well with the frosting and cake’s sweetness. So don’t use too much sugar in the compote. And use it within a week if making huge quantities.
This is not a frosting recipe. It is used only for filling desserts as it is not a very stable cream. Use this for tub or box cakes for best results. The cream just by itself tastes like ice-cream.
Make sure to chill the cream and mascarpone cream before beating. If possible chill the beater and the bowl and use a ice bath to beat. In this heat, it needs all kinds of precautions.
I made masscarpone at home with Amul high fat cream. Recently I have started ordering directly from Amul site and it has been so much fun. Very tough to source Amul products come home easily. So you might see some desserts soon on the blog.
The fun part of the recipe is the assembly. I will share a video in Instagram soon on how I assembled the cake. Always use an adjustable cake ring lined with OHP sheets to make it fuss free.
I have used rings before, but after you refrigerate, it is tough to remove the cake from the ring. But with this set up, removing is easy breezy.
Once done, wrap it with cling film. It is really important as fresh cream usually dries up in fridge and will develop cracks on top. Refrigerate the cake overnight before slicing.
Remove the tin, OHP sheets and add your decorations on top. I just kept it simple. You can even make pourable ganache and pour it on top and let it drip down the sides. Whatever you fancy, do it to the final cake before cutting.
Use a warm knife to slice through the cake. It will give you a neat finish.
Here is my mascarpone cream recipe. You need high fat cream to make mascarpone. Use Amul or Milky mist high fat cream. Please click on the image below to read the recipe in full.
Eggless black forest pastry
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 140 gm Maida
- 30 gm Cocoa Powder
- 150 gm Sugar powdered
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ½ tsp Baking Powder
- 150 ml Milk
- 100 ml Curd
- l75 ml Oi
- 2 tsp Instant Coffee
- 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
For the Mascarpone Cream:
- 200 gm Mascarpone cream
- 200 ml Whipping cream
- 50 gm Icing Sugar
- 15 gm Milk Powder
- 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
For the Cherry Compote
- 200 gm Tinned Cherry pitted and sliced
- 2 tbs Sugar
Instructions
For the cake:
- Preheat oven to 160C.
- Line, grease and dust a 9” by 13” rectangular tin.
- Mix together maida, baking powder, baking soda, powdered sugar, coffee powder and cocoa powder.
- Add milk, curd, vanilla and oil and mix well to make smooth batter.
- Pour it into the prepared tin and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.
- Bring it out and let it cool on wire rack for 5 minutes.
- Flip the cake on the wire rack, remove parchment and allow them to cool completely.
- Using 6” cake tin as base, cut out two circles. One circle might be cut out of remaining cake like pieces of puzzle.
For the Mascarpone cream:
- In a bowl mix cold mascarpone cream, cold whipping cream, icing sugar vanilla and milk powder.
- Beat the mixture until it forms stiff peaks.
- Cover and chill the bowl until assembly.
For the Cherry Compote:
- In a saucepan, mix chopped pitted cherries and sugar.
- Cook until the mix is really thick with very little water content.
- Allow it to cool completely before assembling.
Assembling the pastry:
- Use an adjustable cake ring and two strips of OHP sheets to assemble the pastry.
- Place the ring lined with OHP sheet on a cake board.
- Place pieced circle at the bottom, top side down and adjust the ring to fit the cake without any gap.
- Reserve the juice for soaking the cake.
- Add generous amount of cream and top it with half of the cherry compote.
- Now place the second layer on top and drizzle juice.
- Repeat cream and remaining cherry compote.
- Finally add the third cake, drizzle with syrup.
- Reserving a small amount of cream for the final decorations, add the remaining cream on top of the cake.
- Use a spatula to smoothen the layer.
- Cover the cake with cling film and refrigerate overnight.
- Next day, remove the ring, ohp sheets and using a spatula, smoothen the sides.
- Make some swirls on top of the cake, place a whole cherry inside every swirl.
- Slice it into eight wedges using a warm clean knife.
- Serve it immediately.
