The best birthday cake in the whole world!

Master Chef Australia will be the death of me... that damn show plays on my biggest weakness: perfectionism. I thought making a delicious risotto was good enough, but then they would create these 20 component risottos that set alight spontaneoulsy and the ashes turn into dessert or something. It gave me a serious inferiority complex. AND on top of that, they came out with Junior Master Chef, so then I had to endure 9 year olds creating dishes I couldn't even pronounce. It was all just too much for me, I HAD to up my game, I refuse to be left looking like a peasant chef with my unsalted caramel and homeless gingerbread man.


So obviously I turned to Adriano Zumbo for competition. Clearly nothing other than the V8 cake could serve as my Everest. I got half way through reading the ingredients before I respectfully decided I should perhaps tackle Kilamanjaro first. I've had my eye on Gary Mehigan's black forest cake recipe for some time now, but with 7 layers and 8 components, and about 1kg of fresh cherries, there was never quite the occasion to warrant such extravagance... until my birthday came around :)

This is without a doubt the best birthday cake in the whole frikken world! It's got chocolate, but not super chocolate overload, it has mascarpone cream, a cherry compote for a bit of tang, a praline, and fresh delicious cherries in every bite. Sure, it took the better half of a day to make, and it costs a small fortune, but it is worth every little crumb!

First you start with a chocolate sponge, very similar to genoise sponge

Then a cherry compote

Then a cherry mascarpone cream with stewed cherries

A hazelnut praline

and a chocolate mousse

and you put it all together and get this! Seven layers of alternating chocolate mousse and cherry mascarpone filling, toppped with fresh cream, fresh cherries, a hazelnut praline and dark chocolate shavings :)