Black Forest Cupcake with Griottines

Hi there lovely dumplings, I am back!

How have you guys been? I hope everyone had a lovely year-end holiday and ready to start the year 2017 with new spirit. Let's celebrate the new year the right way by eating cake. For those of you who has healthy new year's resolutions, you should give yourself a reward for having such positive attitude with a cake, shall we? :D

Today I am making the legendary Black Forest cake in cupcake size (less trouble and it looks cute). Every birthday and celebration in my family were not the same without a piece of Black Forest cake. I am pretty sure before the age of 20, if you'd ask me what is cake/torte, I would say it's Black Forest, because that was as much as I know about cake and pastry. What happened when I was 22, you ask? Well, that's when I started go to cafés and drown myself into the sweet and addicting world of pastries. 

Black Forest or Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte is a German dessert consist of layers of chocolate sponge cake, cream, and kirsch-infused cherries. It is considered a cake for adults due to the alcohol in the kirsch. I am using Griottines kirsch-indused cherries in this recipe but you can omit this part and use fresh cherries (or even canned) instead to make the cake more children friendly. 

Let's start!

Ingredients for the moist chocolate cupcake: 

1 cup of flour for pastry

1/2 cup cacao powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg

3/4 cup buttermilk

Baking steps:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 or 177 C, line your muffin tray with cupcake paper,
2. In a bowl, combine flour, cacao powder, baking soda, and baking powder, whisk them together and set aside,
3. In a mixing bowl, mix butter and sugar on medium speed until well combined, 
4. Add vanilla extract and egg, continue mixing, 
5. Slowly add the flour mixture and buttermilk in and mix until combine
6. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tray and bake for 17 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcakes comes out clean,
7. Set aside to cool completely before decorating. 

Favorite snack of all time; morello cherries in kirsch.

Ingredients for cherry filling: 

250 gr pitted fresh cherries

250 gr Griottines morello cherries, drained from the kirsch

1/3 cup sugar

2 tbsp brandy

Cooking step: 

1. Roughly chopped the pitted fresh cherry and Griottines morello cherries,
2. Put the cherries in a pan, add sugar and let it simmer for awhile until it thickens, 
3. Set aside and stir in the brandy,
4. Let cool.
5. 
   

Ingredients for kirsch frosting (optional, you can use homemade or store bought whipped cream instead):

1 cup butter, room temperature

2 1/2 tbsp kirsch from Griottine (replace with 2 tbsp buttermilk and 2 tsp of vanilla essence if you want non-alcohol vanilla frosting)

3 cups confectioner sugar

PS: Keep aside for decorating:

12 fresh cherry (or canned one will do too)

Dark chocolate, shaved

Cooking step: 

1. In a mixing bowl, beat butter until it's smooth and creamy, 
2. Add kirsch and continue mixing, 
3. Add sugar and turn the mixing power to high and let it run for awhile until the texture of the frosting turns white, light and fluffy. 

Decorating the cupcake: 

1. Make a tiny well on the center of each cupcake using a teaspoon to scoop the part of the cake out. Do it gently, 
2. What to do with the scooped out part? I don't know about you but I put it right away in my mouth, 
3. Fill the tiny well you made with the cherry filling, 
4. Put the frosting into a piping bag and pipe the frosting onto the cupcake,
5. Sprinkle with shaved dark chocolate and sit a fresh cherry on top of your cupcake. 

Et voila! Enjoy this pretty treat to brighten your first week of 2017. 

Happy baking!

PS: I personally think the frosting is a bit too sweet and would rather go with whipped cream instead.