Black Forest Gateau in a Glass

For the sponge: In a bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and set aside. Pre-heat the oven to 180C fan, line a baking tray 24x24 with baking paper or grease it with butter.

Using an electric whisk, beat the eggs and sugar for about 5 minutes or until the eggs increase in volume.

Add the flour mixture to eggs and carefully combine with a spatula. Finally add the melted butter (make sure it’s not hot) and combine.

Pour the batter into the cake form and bake for 25 minutes. Check the cake by interesting a skewer, when it come out clean the cake is done. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

For the cherries: Strain the cherries over a bowl, to keep the cherry juice. Pour the juice into a small pan, add the sugar and rum. Bring to a gentle simmer and reduced by one third. Add the cherries into the syrup and leave to cool at room temperature.

For the cream: Whip the heavy cream together with the cream cheese, whole milk and caster sugar until stiff peaks form. Transfer the cream in a piping bag.

To assemble the cake in a glass: Cut out the cake discs with a ring cutter and brush each of them with the reduced cherry juice. The cake should soak up the liquid making it extra moist. If you don’t have enough cherry juice, you could mix 100ml of water with 25 ml of rum.

Add a generous amount of whipped cream to the bottom of the glass and add a spoon full of cherries and some juice. Sprinkle with a teaspoon of Food Thoughts Cacao Nibs and place the cake disc layer on top, pressing it gently down so the cream spreads to the sides of the glass.

Repeat again with a second layer of cream, cherries, cacao nibs and cake. Finish with a layer of cream on top, decorate with cherries, cacao nibs and few drops of the cherry juice. If possible, leave the desserts in the fridge for 2 hours to develop the flavours before serve.