Chocolate Cherry Torte

Isabella turns seventeen on October 22. The birthday falls during a week when I am mailing tamales to a war zone and counting the days since Javier's death and managing a bakery and preparing for the children's chorus audition and trying to remember that my children who are here deserve as much attention as my child who is there. Isabella deserves. Isabella always deserves. Isabella is the quiet one, the steady one, the one who doesn't demand and therefore risks being overlooked, and I will not overlook her, not today, not on her seventeenth birthday, not when she is seven months from applying to nursing school and a lifetime from the woman she is becoming.

I gave her a stethoscope. A real one. A Littmann Classic III, which is the stethoscope that the research internship coordinator recommended, which costs ninety-eight dollars, which is worth every penny because when Isabella put the earpieces in and held the chest piece to her own wrist and heard her own heartbeat, her face did a thing I have only seen once before — the same thing that happened to Sofia when she opened the pastry tools. The face went still. The animation paused. The smile came. And the smile was the smile of a girl who is holding the instrument of her future and hearing it speak.

Her birthday dinner was quiet — just family, Carmen, no party, because Isabella doesn't do parties, Isabella does dinners. I made mole negro — the Oaxacan black mole, the six-hour mole, the "molecularly interesting" mole from last year. She said: "You remembered." I said: "I remember everything about my children." She said: "The mole is the best thing you make." I said: "The mole is the hardest thing I make." She said: "Same thing." Same thing. Yes. The best things and the hardest things are always the same things, and the same-ness is the lesson that Rosa taught me and that I teach my children and that my children are beginning to understand.

Luis Jr. called to wish Isabella happy birthday. Five minutes. He sang "Happy Birthday" in a voice that was off-key and distant and the most beautiful sound on earth because the sound was alive and far and his, and the alive is the only note that matters.

Mole negro is the hardest thing I make, and on Isabella’s birthday it is also the best thing I make — but the mole belongs to the dinner, and a seventeenth birthday deserves something more to mark it. I made this chocolate cherry torte because the dark cocoa carries the same deep, layered spirit as the mole: nothing simple, nothing rushed, nothing that doesn’t earn its place on the table. The cherries are for her — their brightness against the dark is exactly the kind of contrast Isabella herself is, steady and quiet until she smiles, and then the whole room changes.

Prep Time: 35 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 1 hr 10 min (plus cooling) | Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup strong brewed coffee, cooled
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp pure vanilla extract, divided
1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
2 tbsp kirsch or cherry juice
2 cups heavy whipping cream, cold
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate shavings, for garnish
12 maraschino cherries with stems, for garnish

Instructions

Prepare the pans. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans, line bottoms with parchment paper, and grease the parchment. Dust lightly with cocoa powder, tapping out the excess.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until fully combined.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, cooled coffee, oil, and 1 tsp vanilla until smooth. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined — do not overmix. Batter will be thin.
Bake. Divide batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake 30–35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire racks and cool completely.
Prepare the cherry filling. Stir together the cherry pie filling and kirsch (or cherry juice) in a small bowl. Set aside.
Whip the cream. In a chilled bowl, beat heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar, and remaining 1 tsp vanilla on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Do not overbeat.
Assemble the torte. Place one cake layer on a serving plate. Spread a generous layer of whipped cream over the top, then spoon half the cherry filling over the cream, leaving a 1/2-inch border at the edge. Set the second cake layer on top and press gently to secure.
Frost and decorate. Spread the remaining whipped cream over the top and sides of the torte. Spoon the remaining cherry filling over the center top. Press chocolate shavings onto the sides and scatter a few over the top. Arrange maraschino cherries around the edge of the top layer.
Chill before serving. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before slicing to allow the layers to set. Serve cold.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Cherry Torte — The Best Things Are Always the Hardest Things