Black forest cake Trifle. Kirsch soaked dark chocolate cake, juicy cherry filling, luscious chocolate pudding & whipped cream make this layered dessert rich and decadent.
The layers in this black forest trifle combine into an amazing combination of deliciousness. I love making trifles because they are easy and quicker to make compared to frosting and decorating cakes.
The black forest cake trifle has a few elements to it. Trust me, you may choose to buy store bought items and assemble together to look like an impressive dessert. Here are the different layers of the Black Forest Cake Trifle.
- Chocolate Cake
- Cherry Filling
- Chocolate Pudding
- Whipped Cream.
Now let's look at the elements one by one.
Chocolate Cake - This is a super easy cake to make. You may bake it a few days or a night ahead and keep refrigerated. You can absolutely use a store bought cake instead.
Cherry Filling - I used fresh cherries (though out of season) to make the cherry pie filling layer. With a splash of Kirsch, it turned into amazing. You may buy your favorite pre made cherry filling as well. You can use strawberries or raspberries and make a compote. If you dont want to use liquor, skip it and use any non alcoholic juice (cherry or pomegranate juice).
Chocolate Pudding - This is easy 2 ingredient chocolate pudding. You are going to need melted & cooled good quality chocolate and heavy cream. The scratch made creamy chocolate pudding gives this trifle utmost richness. On a completely unrelated note, the chocolate pudding is super good dessert together with fresh berries.
Whipped Cream - Simply Heavy cream beaten to soft peak consistency.
An Easy Dessert
Like all trifles, the black forest cake trifle is also best made a little ahead(not more than 1 day though). You may keep it refrigerated once you have assembled it. I know its so HARD to wait but its worth the wait, I promise. It is an amazing dessert for any occasion. The trifle is not at all difficult to make, but yes making the components takes time. However, you can spread out the work over a couple of days and assemble just a few hours before serving.
Break It Down
I baked the chocolate cake a night before. While the cake baked, I made the cherry filling. While the cake cooled, I made the base of the chocolate pudding. Keep everything refrigerated and next morning just before assembling, I whipped up the heavy cream. A little planning and its an easy peasy dessert.
The individual components in this recipe are amazing on their own. This is my go to chocolate cake recipe, you can use the cherry filling as an icecream or yogurt topping and the 2 ingredient eggless chocolate pudding is a shortcut but it hits the right spot.
Black Forest Cake Trifle
Ingredients
One 9 inch Chocolate Cake
- 120 gms (1 cup) all purpose flour
- 150 gms (¾ cup) granulated sugar
- 40 gms (6 tbsp) unsweetened cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- ½ cup whole milk, room temperature
- 5 tablespoon neutral oil
- 5 tablespoon hot water or coffee
- ½ tablespoon pure vanilla
- ¼ cup Kirsch for soaking the cake
Cherry Pie Filling (Skip this if you want and use store bought Cherry Pie Filling)
- 1 lb (400 gms) fresh cherries, pitted
- 3 tbsp water
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 tbsp kirsch
Chocolate Pudding
- 6 oz (1 cup) semi sweet chocolate chips
- 120 ml (½ cup) heavy cream
- pinch sea salt
Whipped Cream
- 1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream
- 2-4 tablespoon powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 tablespoon Kirsch
- Shaved chocolate,Marachino Cherries to garnish
Instructions
Bake the Cake
- Spray a 9 inch pan with oil. Line the base of the cake with parchment paper. Flour the sides of the cake pan with cocoa powder.
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- In a large bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- In another bowl, whisk together milk, oil, egg and vanilla.
- Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour the wet ingredients. Fold in gently till just incorporated. Pour over the hot coffee and gently(dont not whisk) everything so that you can see a smooth shiny brown batter with no streaks of white flour. The batter will be quite runny but its all okay.
- Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 28-32 minutes or un till a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. The cake will start to pull away from the sides slightly.
- Take out of the oven and let cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Run a knife all around and take out the cake out of the pan on to a cooling rack. Cool completely. Once cooled, you can store the cake in the fridge for 2-3 days. This cake freezes easily, just wrap the cake in a cling film followed by placing it in a large ziploc and freeze upto a month.
- If you are making trifle cake next morning, poke holes all over in the cake and pour Kirsch all over, let soak up. Store the cake overnight or for 2-3 hours atleast. For the trifle, cut up the cake into small cubes using a sharp knife or cut rounds the size of the serving bowl as you wish.
Make the Cherry Pie filling
- In a sauce pan, add the cherries,water, sugar and lemon juice. Set to cook on a low medium stove.
- Slowly you will see that the cherries will start to soften. Let cook for 5-8 minutes.
- At the end of 8 minutes you will see a lot of liquid in the pot, these are cherry juices and moisture of sugar. It will be bubbly.
- Reduce the heat to low and add the cornstarch all at once. Immediatly stir around (but gently else the cherris will break).
- Cook for 2-4 minutes, you will see the liquid will thicken up and the filling will resemble a thickish gel.
- Take off the heat and let cool for 5 minutes. Mix in the kirsch.
- Once completely cooked, store in a air tight jar.
Make the Choolate Pudding
- Place the chocolate chips in a large bowl.
- Warm up the heavy cream in a small pot. You will start to see bubbles on the sides of the pot. Take off the stove and immediately pour over the chocolate chips.
- Whisk gently untill all the chocolate is dissolved. Cool down to room temperature and then chill overnight.
- In the morning simply beat using a hand mixer untill fluffy. Easy chocolate pudding is ready.
Whipped Cream
- Place chilled heavy cream in a large bowl. Beat for 5 minutes untill it starts to thicken.
- Add the powdered sugar slowly and keep beating untill soft peaks are formed.
Assemble the trifle
- In a Large trifle bowl or in individaul serving jars, layer the cake, cherry pie filling, pudding as you like. You can repeat the layers to make large servings or keep them single layer of each component.
- Chill for 3-4 hours or till ready to serve. Top with whipped cream, chocolate shavings and some marachino cherries and serve!
Dorothy's New Vintage Kitchen
This looks beautiful!
Tanvi
Thank you!!
Maria
In the whipped cream part of the recipe, it doesn't mention when and how to add the kirsch. After initial peaks are formed or all at the beginning? Thanks
Tanvi Srivastava
Thanks for pointing out. Add after initial peaks are formed.