A big birthday party this weekend, so it had to be a bûche.
Dark Forest Bûche
Chocolate digestive and upmarket Lindt candy crunch
Blackcurrant curd
Dark chocolate sponge
Cherries in brandy
Mascarpone and vanilla chantilly
Dark chocolate mousse
Glaze
Chocolate, cherries
My first Black Forest, and many things learned:
a) Buy the cherries at the last minute, or I will eat them all.
b) Cling film leaves an unintentionally cool wood effect on the cake.
c) I cannot cut straight to save my life.
d) You can pipe glaze onto cakes.
e) You don't notice how bad Paris streets are until you're trying to keep a cake away from your white shirt in the back of a taxi.
But not bad 
Edited for coherence.
