Step 1

Preheat oven to 190C/170C fan forced. Grease five 17.5cm (7 inch) round cake tins and line with baking paper.

Step 2

Place butter and caster sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale and creamy. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Combine buttermilk, vinegar and red food colour in a jug. Sieve flour, cocoa powder and salt 2-3 times or until nicely incorporated.

Step 3

Gently beat half the flour mixture into the butter then half the buttermilk mixture, then the remaining flour then the remaining buttermilk mixture. Divide between the cake tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Step 4

For the frosting, beat butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the cream cheese and beat to combine. Add the icing sugar and vanilla paste and beat until smooth.

Step 5

Spoon approximately ⅓ to a large piping bag fitted with a 1cm round nozzle. Pipe a nice layer of icing over 4 of the cakes. Stack them one on top of the other and finish with an uniced cake. Add more icing to the piping bag and pipe a layer over the top and sides, spreading with a crank handled spatula or cake scraper, smooth the icing, allowing it to nicely coat the cake (this will give you what is called a crumb coating and will seal all the loose crumbs to the cake. Refrigerate. Pipe over remaining icing and smooth. If desired, leave some cake slightly exposed to create a “naked” cake. Decorate with cherries.