know it’s only November and it might feel a little early for Christmas recipes, but Christmas is something I’m really looking forward to this year. It hopefully means travel, more freedom and lots of family. This recipe is also the perfect thing to share in November as Cherry season quickly approaches. A couple more weeks and the fresh variety will be readily available, frozen cherries will totally suffice until then.

Stay away from the canned or preserved variety for this recipe though. They tend to be sweeter and this little number is meant to celebrate the bitterness of chocolate and the perfect sweet and acidic balance of a fresh or frozen cherry. That’s where the magic lies. And in the delicious chocolate that the lovely folks at Koko Black sent me to inspire this recipe.

The sponge layer uses the easiest chocolate cake recipe that I’ve settled on after many different trails. It has coffee in it to enhance that chocolate flavour and is oil based as I like how light it makes the sponge. The intense chocolate flavour is thanks to very good quality cocoa, I used the Koko black cocoa powder from their at home range.

There is also a chocolate mousse layer because who needs custard when you can have mousse? It’s a lighter version of one I’ve made for catering and private chef jobs for years. It’s also very easy to make and great just by itself.

There’s obviously layers of booze soaked cherries and cream too! Because that’s the joy of trifle, fruit and cream! But no jelly in this one, for two reasons: I’m actually not that into it, and it adds more time to the recipe and I wanted to make this as easy as trifle from scratch can be. Who needs jelly? (Obviously add jelly if you’re into it, you do you.) The choice in alcohol is up to you I have suggested kirsch, chambord, cointreau or sherry but any sweetish spirit will work. My Grandma always used sherry in trifle and so much of it. She didn’t drink, so didn’t get that she was basically making jello-shot trifle with the amount of sherry she was adding! It’s probably why I though trifle was so great as a kid… hmmmm.

I decorated the trifle in some amazing chocolates from Koko Black’s Christmas range. You could also decorate with fresh cherries and chocolate shavings or cocoa powder. Those raspberry dark chocolate roasted macadamias from Koko black that look like little cherries are so so good though!

I have written this recipe as 6 stemless wine glass sized serves. These are large serves. You could use any clear tumbler for this. or smaller clear ramekins and do twelve serves. Or One large traditional trifle.

Serves 6 – 12

Ingredients

Chocolate Cake

1 cup plain flour

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used an extra light olive oil)

1/2 cup coffee (I used aeropress, you could use instant or anything similar in strength to a long black)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate Mousse

150g dark chocolate (I used Koko Black chocolate dotties)

150ml pure cream

2 eggs

2 Tbs caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Cherries

3 Tbs cointreau, kirsch, chambord, grand mariner or sherry

350g pitted cherries, quartered (fresh or frozen)

Cream

200ml pure cream

2 tsp caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

To decorate (all optional)

Fresh cherries

Chocolate shavings (I used the Koko Black variety)

Koko Black Very Cherry Marbles

Koko Black Raspberry Macadamias

Koko Black Coconut Cherry Delight, broken into shards

Directions

Cake

Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius. Grease and line a 30cm springform cake tin. A little smaller is fine, it may just take longer to cook the cake.

In one large bowl sift together, the plain flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir through the sugar.

In another bowl or jug, beat the egg then mix in the oil, buttermilk, vanilla and coffee. Make sure the coffee is just warm not boiling so you don’t scramble the egg mix. It doesn’t need to be mixed together well.

Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and fold together to completely combine. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until it bounces back when lightly touched and/or a skewer comes out clean. Remove sides of the tin and cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes. Roughly chop into 3cm squares.

Mousse

Using a stand mixer or electric beater whip the cream to stiff peaks. Do not overbeat! Set aside.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler (heatproof bowl over pot of simmering water) until almost melted. Take off the heat and stir to finish melting.

In a clean bowl use the stand mixer or electric beater again to beat together the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla. Beat until mixture is pale and thick and doubled in volume. This takes about 5 minutes. While the mixer is running on low, pour in the chocolate in a steady stream. Continue mixing until well combined. Fold through the whipped cream. Set aside until cake has cooled.

Cherries

Place cherries and alcohol of choice in a bowl and allow to site for at least half an hour.

Cream

Using a stand mixer or electric beater whip the cream to stiff peaks. Sprinkle over the sugar and pour in the vanilla and whip for another 30 seconds or until stiff peaks have formed. Do not overbeat! Set aside.

Assemble

Now you’re ready to assemble. I used 6 stemless wine glasses, you could replicate in a tumbler or make smaller trifles. Or one large one.

1. Place a few squares of cake in the bottom of each glass to complete one layer.
2. For each glass, pour over a Tbs or 2 of cherries with at least 1 tsp of the juice and alcohol from the bottom of the cherry bowl.
3. Spoon over enough mousse to just cover the chocolate cake and cherry layer. Use all the mousse in this layer. Smooth top.
4. Add a spoonful of cream, spread out and then repeat the cake and Cherry layer, top with remaining cream.
5. Add your decorations to the top.

Tip: if you find portioning difficult it might help to halve the ingredients for the cake, Cherry and cream layers so you don’t short your self on the second layer!

HH. x