Raspberry Black Forest cake I made for my birthday

No Recipe Forum
1

I don’t usually do much cake decorating, but I’ve wanted to try this for a while. I attempted to make a birch tree stump cake. I can’t decide if I love or hate how it looks, but it tasted amazing!

For the cake, I mostly followed Sally’s Baking Addiction’s Black Forest cake recipe, but I swapped raspberries for the cherries. I used Claire Saffitz’s chocolate buttercream from her Bûche de Noël recipe for the frosting. The birch bark is wafer paper, the mushrooms are meringue, and the butterflies are royal icing transfers.

It was a fun experiment, and I’m thinking of making it a yearly tradition to try and improve it each time…

raspberry-black-forest-cake-i-made-for-my-birthday-v0-oz7ebj8y2w7e1
raspberry-black-forest-cake-i-made-for-my-birthday-v0-oz7ebj8y2w7e11018×1168 109 KB

2

I absolutely love forests and this cake decor won me over! It looks adorable.

3

Ollie said:
I absolutely love forests and this cake decor won me over! It looks adorable.

Thank you so much! I also love forests and just nature in general, so this cake has been in my brain for a long time.

4

@Quinn
You did an amazing job. It is brilliant to blend ‘black forest’ flavor with forest elements (tree stump, mushrooms, butterfly, etc.). You mentioned improvements. In my mind, experimentation is a better way to look at it. You might add a fuzzy-wuzzy caterpillar, a twig or sprout from the stump, a bird, burled portions, a beetle - the possibilities are nearly endless. You’re a true artist, so I hope that you post any variations you come up with! By the way: Happy Birthday!

5

Vesper said:
This looks wonderful! The bark effect is really stunning. Great job!

Aww thank you. The wafer paper was really easy to work with. It’s my first time using it, but now I can imagine a million ways to decorate with it in the future.

6

Oh, goodness!!! Happy Birthday! That looks spectacular!

7

I wish bakeries would sell cakes like this.

8

Bennet said:
This is gorgeous! Did you just apply the wafer paper straight to the buttercream to get that effect, or did you do anything else to it?

I scratched and ripped the paper a little bit and used brown food coloring to add lines and texture. Then I sprayed the back with a little bit of water and pressed it onto the buttercream.

9

@Quinn
That’s smart! Did you do the top as a big painted wafer paper sheet?

10

I love this on so many levels. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: Also, happy birthday!!! :tada::partying_face::balloon::birthday:

11

So witty! Happy Birthday!

12

I read this as ‘raspberry and black forest ham cake’ and I was really concerned for a second :sob:. Jokes aside, your cake is beautiful OP, it’s so whimsy!

13

Ren said:
I read this as ‘raspberry and black forest ham cake’ and I was really concerned for a second :sob:. Jokes aside, your cake is beautiful OP, it’s so whimsy!

Jokes aside your cake is beautiful op, it’s so whimsy.

14

I’m not a fan of cherry flavored anything but can appreciate the look of that cake and it’s beautiful!

15

Oak said:
I’m not a fan of cherry flavored anything but can appreciate the look of that cake and it’s beautiful!

I don’t love cherry much either. That’s why I substituted with raspberries. Raspberry and chocolate is always a great combo.

16

@Quinn
Oops, I did not read your description on your post. Also didn’t realize the title literally says raspberry. I don’t know what was happening with me today lol, but as I said your cake looks beautiful!

17

New goals!!! Love this so much!

18

Would you share the recipe? This looks amazing!

19

Wow you did a FANTASTIC job and even showed the slice :tada::tada::tada::tada:

20

Amazing!