This cake is an adaption of two recipes: Fijian chocolate cake by Alexa Johnston from foodie.co.nz (http://foodie.co.nz/Recipes/Fijian-Chocolate-Cake-by-Alexa-Johnston.aspx) with a Black Forest-type filling. Alexa calls in Fijian because it uses coconut cream. It makes a really dark, moist chocolate cake. I made 1 ½ times this recipe to make a big cake to feed 10 adults.

210 g flour
55 g cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
200 g sugar
2 eggs
125 g melted butter
400 ml tin coconut cream
1 tsp vanilla essence

See Alexa’s recipe for her coconut icing ingreds and method. For my filling I used:

2 cans of pitted cherries
500 g whipped cream
dark chocolate shavings

Preheat the oven to 350º F/180º C. Grease an 8 in/20 cm round tin and line the bse with a circle of baking paper. Bring the eggs to room temperature.
Sift the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and add the sugar.
Beat the eggs lightly, add the melted butter, coconut cream and vanilla and pour this onto the dry ingredients.
Beat with a wooden spoon for about a minute until smooth and well combined, pour into the tin and bake for 45 – 55 minutes.
The cake should be well risen and will spring back when you press the centre gently with your finger. (Because I made a bigger cake I baked it for nearly one hour. After 40 mins I put foil on top to stop the top getting burned.) Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool. When cool cut the cake into 3 layers. Drain the cherries, saving the syrup. Heat the syrup with a bit of kirsch or nice liqueur that would go well with the cherries. Pour onto the layers. (This time I didn’t use liqueur as kids were eating the cake.)
Mix the cherries with half of the whipped cream. Spread half onto the bottom cake round, put middle layer on top, then spread the rest of the cherry mixture on the middle layer and place the top cake layer.

Cover top with cream and decorate with chocolate shavings. Serve with cream.

This is my entry into February’s Sweet New Zealand, hosted by Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice (http://sugarandspice-and-allthingsnice.blogspot.co.nz). Her link to February's entries: http://sugarandspice-and-allthingsnice.blogspot.co.nz/p/sweet-new-zealand.html