Chocolate tea cake with cherry filling

The calculation in the recipe is for a tall cake tin with a hollow in the middle (approximately 20 cm | 7.87 inch in diameter).

• Preheat the oven to 311F (155C).
• Combine the sifted flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, cocoa, spices and vanilla sugar.
• Add the eggs (one by one), soft butter, vegetable oil, milk and vinegar.
• Mix all the ingredients with a mixer for 5 minutes.
• Add the cherries (pre-soaked in cognac), and stir.
• Grease the mold with butter, and sprinkle with cocoa.
• Bake the tea cake at 311F (155C) for about 50-70 minutes with convection (after 45 minutes, start checking the readiness with a skewer every 5 minutes).
• Remove the finished cake from the mold almost immediately. Turn it onto a wire rack, and leave to cool.

• Melt the chocolate cubes in a water bath.
• Pour in the cream, and stir well.
• Turn off the heat, add the butter, and mix again.
• Pour the cooled cake with chocolate, and sprinkle with almond petals.

This tea cake is moist, dense, with a rich chocolate aroma and hints of New Year's spices. If you are patient and don't eat it right away, then in two days its taste and density will be simply stunning (much tastier than immediately after baking).