Today I am sharing a delicious white forest cake, piled high with juicy, syrupy cherries and filled with a pillowy white chocolate mousse. It is the perfect cake to celebrate! For instance, it would be stunning on your Christmas table. The Black Forest is a true favorite of mine, so I riffed on it to make an elegant version.
I have a serious weakness for canned cherry pie filling. I suppose the great pleasure in preserves and jams and canned pie filling is that you can enjoy peak-season fruit all year round, so the season doesn’t matter, right?
Even though the cake requires a few steps, the components are as simple as possible to avoid the risk of error (or just stress). The cake base is a super easy version – no beating, fluffing, or stand mixer required. A simple oil cake, easy as a boxed mix.
To make the white chocolate mousse, you simply melt white chocolate, let it cool to room temperature, and then fold in whipped cream. As the chocolate cools it firms, setting the air bubbles. It is easy peasy like that. A crown of whipped cream topped with more gooey cherry pie filling tops the cake
This white forest cake is a cake you just have to make! It is a real showstopper and mouthwatering cake!
This will be my last post for 2020, as I am taking a much needed two-week break in these turbulent times we are all living in. I wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2021 ✨
White Forest Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour lightly spooned in and leveled off
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon coarse salt
- 3 large eggs
- 1 ⅓ cups vegetable oil
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
For the filling and topping:
- 170 grams white chocolate
- 1 can cherry pie filling
- 2 ¼ cup whipped cream
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
For the cake:
- Preheat oven to 175ºC. Prepare two 23 cm cake pans by greasing, flouring, and lining bottoms with parchment paper. This is a moist cake, do all three to make sure it doesn't stick.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, then whisk in the vegetable oil, buttermilk, and vanilla. Pour into the flour mixture and gently fold together until no dry patches remain. Don't over-mix.
- Divide batter between prepared cake pans and bake about 35 minutes, rotating pans once.
- Cakes are done when the centers feel springy (not squishy) when gently pressed. If in doubt, pull out your thermometer - the internal temperature should be 93-96ºC.
- Let cakes cool 5 minutes in pans before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
For the filling and topping:
- Melt 170 grams of the white chocolate with ¼ cup of the cream in microwave on
50% power for 1 minute, until about 80% melted. Stir to finish melting (pop it in additional 10-second intervals on 50% power as needed). Allow chocolate to cool to room temperature. - Whip remaining cream to soft peaks in a stand mixer. Gently fold half of the cream into the cooled chocolate. Whisk sugar and vanilla extract into the rest of the cream in the stand
mixer, then refrigerate it for topping later. - Place one of the cakes inside a 23cm springform pan (or if your springform pan is larger, add a layer of parchment paper around the cake to make it snug).
- Top the cake with about ½ the can of pie filling, then the mousse, and finally the second cake. Refrigerate at least one hour, until mousse is set.
- Remove springform pan and top cake with reserved vanilla whipped cream and cherry pie filling.
