Chocolate Hazelnut Cake: Layer of rich chocolate cake, creamy hazelnut frosting, and crunchy hazelnuts. As I’d like it to be absorbed into the sponge, rather than sitting on top of my pastry, I’m not going to bother to thicken it with arrowroot, as Amend does.

I’m not going to smear the whole thing with cream, however: one of the joys of a layer cake is seeing them laid tantalisingly out before you, so it is a shame to hide them under a blanket of snow. Also my chocolate shavings don’t come out as pretty, more like chocolate dust than chocolate shavings. The great thing about making your own is that you can decide how much (or little) of everything to add.

The most contentious aspect of the whole affair; most of the recipes I find use a light, fatless sponge, which makes sense given the amount of cream it is generally considered necessary to ladle on top. The chocolate layers are so moist and the combination of chocolate, cherries and soft whipped cream is to-die-for. Though it may have been an unashamed tourist trap, the cake itself was a revelation: light but creamy, bursting with sour cherries and booze, it was a world away from my previous black forest gateau (BFG) experiences, largely at the hands of one Sara Lee at the tail end of the 1980s.

The cake is named after a specific Germany cherry liqueur, Schwarzwälder Kirsch, which is traditionally used to flavor the cake. I made this cake today for a remembrance get-together for our recently departed nephew’s first heavenly birthday. Next time, we are going to double the number of cherries (2 cans) — as is you don’t get many cherries between the layers in each slice. Chocolate cake –I bake the batter in two 8-inch pans, then cut each cake layer in half to get a total of 4 layers. I only had a 9-inch pan and I ‘padded’ it out with foil, then lined with a sheet of foil to make it smaller.The Prawn Cocktail Years duo, Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham, and Annie Bell’s Baking Bible plump for much richer affairs, with the former going for melted chocolate as well as the more usual cocoa, plus butter, and Bell adding fromage frais as well. It might be a little small for all the batter, but as long as you don’t fill the pan more than 3/4 full, you should be ok. Many years ago, we did some digging to find a recipe, and source the ingredients, to make our own at home.