Name: Black Forest Cake
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 200 min
Ingredients: 60 g cocoa powder; 120 ml freshly brewed coffee, (or hot water); 120 ml milk; 300 g sugar; 3 eggs; 190 g all-purpose flour; 1 tsp baking soda; .5 tsp baking powder; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 720 ml heavy cream, (cold); 3 tbsp corn starch; 75 g powdered sugar; .5 tsp vanilla extract; 100 g granulated sugar; 100 ml water; 100 g fresh cherries, (pitted and cut in half); dark chocolate shavings, (optional)

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Cherry season is here! Every year I hesitate buying cherries because I personally prefer strawberries or raspberries. Then every year I’m reminded that I actually love cherries, maybe even more than strawberries. For those of you who know me and my journey, cake is actually how I got started. I took a week long course at Fair Cake in London, then came back to Paris and started selling cakes on the side. I love making cakes, I truly do! However due to studying for the CAP, I had to take a step back and focus mainly on la patisserie française. Anyways, back to the cake. My sister-in-laws 20th birthday was this past week and she requested a cake for the party with her friends. Of course I was more than happy to oblige.

Black Forest Cake is based on the German dessert Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, literally “Black Forest Cherry-torte”. It typically consists of layers of chocolate cake, with a cherry filling and whipped cream frosting. Thanks to the whipped cream frosting, the cake it much lighter than a typical American cake with buttercream.

Chocolate Cake

I used my, ever so trusty, devils chocolate cake recipe. If I have ever make a chocolate cake for you, it most likely was this recipe that I used. The cakes bake perfectly, without too much of a dome, meaning less waste when trimming the tops for assembly. The cakes themselves are moist and have a delicate crumb. Rather than using water for this recipe, I use freshly brewed coffee, which creates a richer, deeper chocolate flavor. You can however, use water if you wish.

Whipped Cream Frosting

For most of my cakes, I tend to use a Swiss meringue buttercream. Not only does it taste better than American buttercream (in my opinion) but I find it not as sweet, which gives it extra brownie points in my book. However, Black Forest Cake is always made with whipped cream frosting, which is part of why it’s so light.

I wanted to be able to assembly the cake as I normally would but knew that the cake wouldn’t be served right away and was worried about the whipped cream frosting holding up. So I needed to stabilize the frosting. There are two ways to stabilize frosting – gelatin or corn starch. I tried my hand with gelatin (halal certified). The resulting frosting was light and held its own, however I did find pieces of gelatin that had climbed up during the mixing process. So I decided to go with the corn starch route.

Cherry Filling

In many Black Forest Cake, the cherry filling is quite often a preserve or pie filling. If you haven’t noticed on the blog, I am a firm believer of letting the fruit run the show, so I opted to use fresh cherries. They are in season after all! Personally, I cut the cherries in half and spread them out in between each layer of cake. Before adding the next layer of cake, I put a bit more whipped cream frosting on top to hold them in place. Then of course, I decorated the top of the cake with some fresh cherries.

Assembly

If you’re quite new to stacking cakes, don’t worry, there will be a post on the block shortly. I’ll take you step by step! For now, the most important thing is to have flat tops. If your cakes have domed during baking, you’ll need to use a cake leveler or serrated knife to flatten the top.

When you add the frosting, use an off set spatula to spread the icing in an even layer. Don’t be afraid to squat down and look at the top of the icing to see if it’s level. If you have level cakes and level layers of icing, your cakes will be even and you shouldn’t have any leaning towers of cake!