spa ritual workshop!

very excited about my upcoming spa ritual workshop- guiding people on how to create their own facial products and enjoy a spa ritual!

more info and booking here: https://weteachme.com/ceres/natural-cosmetics-spa-experience-with-louise-fischer

black forest cake for my bday

so it was my birthday recently YIPPEE! i love birthdays- mine, and anyone else's. they are the best reason to make a cake that could possibly exist. my most singular cake love is the black forest cake (or schwarzwalder-kirschtorte) and i've now got a tasty way to make it vegan :)

using my chocolate cake recipe here, add 100g of melted dark chocolate to wet ingredients and combine gently before cooking.

you will also need:

200g sour cherries, drained well, reserving at least 2Tbs of the juice

6-8Tbs cherry jam

1-2Tbs brandy or kirsch, or 1tsp rum or brandy essence- this can be increased to taste (but the cake may not be able to hold more than 3Tbs- experiment!)

300ml carton soytatoo soy whip or other cream substitute

2tsp icing sugar

dark chocolate shavings (optional)

once the cake is completely cooled, carefully cut in half horizontally. in a small bowl, warm the jam, juice and kirsch/essence for 20 seconds in the microwave (just to make it spread more easily). carefully open the two cake halves (this may require the use of a large spatula and a plate- whatever works for you), and spread the jam mixture on the bottom half.

in a medium bowl with high sides, whip the cream and icing sugar with electric beaters or manual beaters (if you're a real gun with a whisk, go for it- i wouldn't chance it. the soyatoo seemed like it wanted to work itself into soft peaks for me, so that's a plus). spread the cream over the jam layer as thick as you'd like it, reserving enough for the top of the cake. you may want to cover the whole cake in cream, or just give it a little hat- up to you.

sit a layer of drained sour cherries on the cream; i set them 1cm apart but would have preferred more cherries, so would recommend a complete layer- cherries all touching their fellows.

carefully place the top layer of cake onto the rest, and top with cream, more cherries, a dot of jam, and dark chocolate shavings.

myaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh yum.........

the cake looks a little flat, but with care can be sliced once cooled completely. maybe if you wanted to go totally OTT you could make two, slice them both in half and stack them on top of each other. ohhhhhhhh let's go there...

i used gluten free flour, which has less backbone than gluteny flours, but i managed to slice and assemble to cake without it falling apart too much.