Black Forest Cherry Cake THE Most Festive Dessert!

Black Forest Cherry Cake
Schwarzwälder Kirshtorte

Syrup
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup cold water
1/3 cup kirsch

Bring water and sugar to boil over moderate heat, stirring only until sugar dissolves. Boil briskly for 5 minutes to reduce a little, remove from heat. When syrup is lukewarm, add kirsch and stir in. Set aside.

Filling
(I like more cherries than the recipe calls for)
1-2 cups cherries

If you are using fresh cherries, pit & remove stems. In a saucepan, combine, 2 cups water & 3/4 cup sugar. Heat mixture, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add cherries & poach by simmering on low for 5 minutes or until cherries are tender. Drain and cool. If using pitted, canned cherries, drain & rinse. Set aside.

Cake
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter
6 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 c white sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
butter and flour to coat three 8" or 9" inch pans

This cake is delicate & doesn't contain leavening so it's best to get it in the oven as soon as possible.
Preheat oven to 350°. Set your pans up first by buttering,flouring & lining them with wax or parchment paper on the bottom.

Image Credit: Creative Commons: DH Wright

Clarify the butter in a small pan or in the microwave. Let it rest a minute after melting gently so the solids have time to settle to the bottom. Skim off the foam & discard the milk solids.

In a small bowl sift together cocoa & flour,set aside.

In a mixer, beat eggs & sugar until tripled in bulk. This will take approximately 10 minutes on High. With a spatula, fold the cocoa-flour mix into the eggs a little at a time carefully to prevent the mix from collapsing. Once the cocoa-flour mix is combined with the eggs, gradually add the clarified butter. The volume will begin to decrease, but don't panic, it's supposed to happen. Be gentle with the process & try to prevent it from falling any more than it should. Once the butter is folded in, pour immediately into the three pans & place them in the oven. Bake 10-15 minutes or until toothpick or knife tests clean.

Remove pans from the oven &let rest for 5 minutes before removing from the pans. Use a sharp knife to release the edges of the cake from the pan. Don't remove the paper until it's time to assemble the cake. The paper will keep the cake together until you begin assembly.
When cool, prick the cakes with a fork & drizzle the syrup over. Don't use too much, there will be more syrup than you need. You want the cakes moist but not saturated.

Topping
3 cups chilled heavy cream
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup kirsch

Whip cream until slightly thickened. Sift in the confectioner's sugar. Continue whipping until stiff peaks form & add the kirsch in a thin stream until combined, while continuing to beat.

Optional Garnish
Maraschino Cherries with stems
Drain well on paper toweling. Do not rinse. Set aside.

Using a cake plate or stand, turn your first layer onto your plate, top side down. Peel off the paper. Spread some of the whipped cream over the cake, leaving a bit of a ridge around the edge. Place half of the cherries on top, avoiding the edge. Gently set your next layer on top & cream & cherries. Place the third layer on top & cover cake with remaining whipped cream, coating the whole cake. Spread it around being careful not to go too deep & pick up crumbs. It doesn't have to be perfect as it looks prettier with some texture.

Garnish using your imagination. See some tips below.

The original version of this recipe is from Time Life Foods of the World Germany Cookbook.

Although this recipe looks M-I-L-E-S long, it isn't difficult to make. It does have quite a few steps but they can be done over a few days, even weeks, in the case of the syrup. Here's a few tips & techniques that will hopefully make the adventure easier! Once you've made this a time or two, it will become a favorite project because this cake is SO worth the work for a special occasion!

If you're not an experienced baker, it's much easier to assemble this cake if you have a Lazy Susan or turntable.

This recipe can be very time consuming if you are inexperienced. It's an easy project to spread over 2 days. On day 1 make your syrup, grate your chocolate or make chocolate curls & cake layers. Make sure you wrap the cake layers tightly in plastic wrap. On day 2, soak your cakes with syrup & proceed with the recipe. Don't try to whip the cream in advance. The syrup will keep, refrigerated for several weeks. The cake layers will freeze for a week

Make sure your eggs are at room temperature before proceeding with this recipe. This cake doesn't contain leavening. The only spring you'll get is from the volume of the egg whites. You'll get a greater volume, so therefore a lighter, fluffier cake by using room temperature eggs. Leave them out of the fridge overnight, if possible, they'll be fine!

If making Black Forest Cake in advance, add your cherry garnish at serving time or dip them in chocolate to prevent them from bleeding onto your cream.

Garnishing your cake is limited only by your imagination & creativity. If you're really stumped & the photos on this lens don't suit your fancy, go to Google images, type in Black Forest Cake & Google says they have 766,000 images for your picking pleasure. I must admit I didn't look at them all! :)

You can grate a bar of chocolate & press the shavings into the sides of the cake, and/or place curls of chocolate on top. Refrigerate until chilled & meanwhile, munch on the leftover chocolate!

You can melt both white & dark chocolate separately & swirl them together when preparing chocolate for chocolate curls.

For a really spectacular presentation, decorate this cake with chocolate covered cherries.

You can make very interesting free form shapes by melting chocolate, drizzling it onto wax paper & allowing it to cool until set. You can then stand your shapes upright in the whipped cream.

Although not traditional, you can make variations of this cake by substituting:
Fresh raspberries for the cherries & substituting a raspberry liqueur such as Chambord for the kirsch!
It's great made with strawberries & strawberry liqueur. Top it with chocolate dipped strawberries!

Make a spectacular finish to a romantic dinner by making individual cakes & topping with chocolate curls & chocolate dipped fruit! Either bake mini cakes individually or bake the Black Forest Cake in a sheet pan & use a cookie cutter to cut fancy shapes such as hearts!

Image Credit-Axel Struwe Love that cute cherry photo? Click here to buy today!

How To Clarify Butter.

You don't need to increase the butter called for in this Black Forest Cake recipe. Use the amount called for in the recipe.

1. To make 1 cup of clarified butter you'll need 1¼ cup of butter. (You will lose approximately 25% of the original butter's total volume when clarifying.)

2. Place butter in a saucepan over a very low heat. Let the butter melt slowly, do not stir the butter while it is melting.

3. As the butter melts, it will separate into three layers. The top layer is a thin layer of foam, the middle layer contains the bulk of the liquid (weighing in at about 80% of the total), and the bottom layer is where the water and most of the milk solids are. This natural separation is what makes clarifying possible.

4. Skim the foam off the surface of the butter, discard the foam. Be cautious to avoid dipping the ladle into the butterfat while skimming, as the fat should remain intact.

5. At this point, there are two possible methods for removing the butterfat from the water on the bottom of the pan. The method we chose to illustrate is to decant the fat from the water.

6. Carefully and slowly pour the fat into another container. You can see the water underneath the clear yellow butterfat. If you notice any of the water slipping into the fat, you may need to re-decant your new batch of clarified butter. If there is any water in the clarified butter, and you try adding it to a hot pan, the water will immediately boil when it hits the pan, causing the hot clarified butter to splatter out of the pan and potentially burning the cook.
An alternate method for separating the fat from the water is to use a ladle and skim the fat up and out of the pan, making sure not to let any of the water get into the ladle.
Pour your newly clarified butter to a separate container, and discard the water and small amount of remaining milk fat.

7. If the clarified butter sits for a moment, you might notice more foam float to the top; use a spoon to remove this last bit of foam.

Clarified Butter-allrecipes.com

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Vegan Black Forest Cake

Cake:
2 cup almond milk
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

"Buttercream" Frosting:

3/4 cup margarine (or Smart Balance) softened
3/4 cup vegetable shortening
5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
6 tablespoons almond milk
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Cherry Filling:
1 jar maraschino cherries
2-4 T kirschwasser (cherry liqueur)
1-2 T cornstarch

3-5 T grated chocolate

Image Credit:indobase,com

Preheat oven to 350F and lightly grease bottoms and sides of two 9" cake pans. Line bottoms of pans with waxed paper.

Whisk together the almond milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil and extracts to the almond milk mixture and beat till foamy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add in two batches to the wet ingredients. Beat till no large lumps remain. Fill cake pans with batter. Bake 30-40 minutes till toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pan five minutes and transfer to rack to cool completely. Peel off wax paper. Set aside.

Cream together the margarine and the shortening until well combined. Add the confectioners' sugar in about 1/2 cup batches and beat well adding a little splash of soy milk after each addition. When all ingredients have been well incorporated, add the vanilla and beat until light and fluffy. Make sure consistency is thick enough for frosting the cake.

Simmer cherries in syrup and add liqueur. Add cornstarch until filling is thick. Set aside.

Place one of the cakes on a serving plate. Spread some frosting on the cake and when cherries are fully cooled spread the cherries over the frosting. Place other cake on top. Frost the cake evenly. Toss grated chocolate evenly on top of cake. Decorate alternating frosting with cherries. Serve.

Enjoy!

Image Credit: Creative Commons-joka2000