Mom (and Dad)'s Birthday Cakes

This Wednesday was my Mom's birthday and since we weren't able to celebrate my Dad's birthday in the summer we decided to celebrate both birthdays at once. So that required two cakes!

Mom asked for the same Turtle Cheesecake I had for my birthday so I was happy to oblige.

And for Dad I made his favourite cake, Black Forest.

Black Forest Cake

Cake
2 cups + 2 tbsp flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350, grease and flour two 9-inch pans. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix well. Add in eggs, milk oil and vanilla. Mix well. Pour into prepared pans. Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire racks and cool completely.

Filling
2 (20 oz) cans Sour Pitted Cherries in juice(I could only find 14 oz jars but it worked just fine)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn starch
1 tsp vanilla (I think I forgot this but it didn't really matter)

Drain cherries. Reserve 1/2 cup of juice. Mix cherries, juice, sugar and corn starch in saucepan. Cook over low heat until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. COOL COMPLETELY! (I definitely did not do this, results described below)

Topping
3 cups whipping cream (unwhipped)
1/3 cup icing sugar
Combine cream and sugar in a chilled GLASS (Ceramic) or METAL bowl. With an electric mixer beat on high speed until stiff peaks form.

Construction

How the instructions said to do it:
Cut each of the two layers in half with a serrated knife or specialty cake layer cutter. Crumble one of the layers and set aside. Set first layer on cake tray. Spoon on some whipping cream. Spoon on cooled cherry goo. Top with second layer, repeat. Top with third layer. Cover the whole cake with the remaining whipped cream. Top cake with more cherry goo. Cover sides of cake with crumbled cake.

How I did it:
Make chocolate shavings: Take a bar of chocolate and a carrot peeler, "peel"(or shave) the chocolate as you would a carrot. Set the chocolate shavings aside. Place the bottom layer on the cake tray. Top with whipped cream. Cover with cherry goo. (Which was still warm because I was running out of time) The cherry goo will melt the whipped cream and goo will go everywhere. Top with second layer. Cover the rest of the cake in whipped cream. Cover the sides and top in chocolate shavings.

What I would recommend for next time:
Make chocolate shavings, as described above. Place bottom layer on cake tray. Top with (warm) cherry goo. Place second layer on top of the cherry goo. Cover the entire cake in whipped cream. Cool the rest of the cherry goo. Place more cherry goo on the top. Cover the sides in chocolate shavings. Serve with excess whipped cream or cherry goo.