So I now had a thawed chocolate cake staring at me from the counter begging not to be thrown away or left to go mouldy. At this point my other half suggested I turn it into a trifle.
I had a mental picture of a traditional trifle with mixed fruit and jelly and I'm afraid I could not comfortably put that combination with chocolate cake. I believed that a trifle should only be made with a vanilla sponge cake. So I had a mental block about mixed fruit and chocolate cake...I don't know where it came from or why I feel that way, but it's just an inconceivable combination to me.
So I still had a chocolate cake eyeing me out nervously from the kitchen counter, probably hurling abuse at the bin by now.
But then it occurred to me that maybe a single fruit would be acceptable with chocolate...and then the brain wave of Black Forest Cake came to me, but still convinced that the cake was now a tiny bit on the dry side, I googled black forest trifle and there it was...and I just happened to open the Nigella Lawson one first. You can view the recipe here; chocolate-cherry-trifle-recipe
I've never made my own custard (shock!), I always buy the ready to mix powder or even sometimes the ready made bottled/boxed stuff. So this recipe was a little daunting, so I cheated :)
I went and bought the ingredients (including some ready-made-thick-chocolate-custard) and did a little more googling and here is the result...sheer chocolaty-decadence!
And here is how it's done:
1. Ingredients:
1 medium sized chocolate cake
(if you look in the picture, the cake fills a standard dinner plate, and I used just over half of it)
Black Plum Jam
Bottle of Morello Cherries in syrup (I used a 700g bottle)
about 1/2 Cup Cherry Brandy/ Kirsch
approx 3 tablespoons sugar
900g Ready-made-thick-chocolate-custard
about 300ml thickened cream
Dark chocolate to grate on top
1 chocolate flake
2. Method:
Slice cake and spread jam on slices to make jam sandwiches (Watch out for pips in the jam!).
Cut slices into blocks and place in large trifle bowl. Drizzle a little kirsch (I used about two shot glasses) over the top of the chocolate cake blocks.
Drain syrup from bottled cherries into a saucepan and keep the cherries aside for later.
Add 3 tbs sugar and about 3 tbs cherry brandy and stir over low heat to dissolve sugar.
Leave to simmer, stirring occasionally. You are trying to get it to a syrupy consistency (when I did mine, I used a large bottle of cherries to there was a lot of liquid, and I had to leave it to reduce quite a bit). When you are happy with the consistency, remove from heat, add the cherries back to the syrup and leave to cool (you can keep a few cherries to use to decorate the top at the end).
Once cooled pour the syrup and cherries over the chocolate cake-jam blocks
Pour and smooth the chocolate custard over the top - cover with plastic wrap/clingfilm and place in fridge.
Just before serving, whip the cream till thick, carefully spread over the top of the custard. Grate the dark chocolate and crumble the flake on top. If you kept some of the cherries out you can use them to decorate the top too.
3. Enjoy!
P.S. When I cut the cake it turned out to still be beautifully moist! So we ate what was left of the cake just as cake :)
And...I do not like to waste food and throwing it away was not ever a real option.
