Black Forest Cake/Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

[Stone]

I've had a request.

Can someone give me the world's best recipe?

Thanks in advance.

[Becca Porter]

The worlds best recipe is in the December 2005 issue of Cuisine at Home. It is incredible. It makes a cherry compote out of cherry juice, dried tart cherries, cherry preserves and frozen dark cherries (I used canned tart because I couldn't get frozen, worked great.)

It also stabilizes the whipped cream filling with a cornstarch "pudding".

It uses their wonderful chocolate cake recipe. Moist and delicious. It also has grated chocolate and chocolate curls between the layers.

I cannot imagine a better one.

-Becca

[CanadianBakin']

lemoncurd made one that looked amazing. I think it is in the pierre herme thread. I'll take a look for it later.

[Ling]

There's indeed a Black Forest cake recipe in Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts book, page 11-15. It's made with his cocoa cake, chocolate whipped cream, kirsh soaking syrup, kirsh-flavoured cream, port-soaked cherries, and garnished with sour cherries.

[CanadianBakin']

lemoncurd made one that looked amazing. I think it is in the pierre herme thread. I'll take a look for it later.

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Here's the link with pictures. As Lorna said, it's from Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts.

Edited December 3, 2005 by CanadianBakin' (log)

[Stone]

The worlds best recipe is in the December 2005 issue of Cuisine at Home.

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Thanks. Someone else recommended this recipe. I'll give it a try.

[ludja]

A new member, lukestar, recently posted a recipe request for a Black Forest cake (Shorty Leonard’s Black Forest Cake) in the Louisiana forum here. The cake sounds intriguing so I cross-posted his request in this thread in the Pastry and Baking Forum.

Hi,

Shorty Leonard was a well known chef in Shreveport over the past 30 years. Shorty died in 2003 after a legnthy career in several well known Shreveport restraunts. His claim to fame was his famous or infamous Black Forest Cake. This is my wifes favorite desert of all times. This cake did not have cherrys like most Black Forest Cakes have in them. I have been looking for a recipe that is close to Mr. Leonard recipe. If anyone has his or one that is close I would appreciate a little help. It is Valentines Day and I am trying my best to find the recipe to make my wife of 27 years happy.

thanks,

lukestar

[Swisskaese]

This is the recipe I use:

Black Forest Cherry Cake

It is the closest recipe to the one my uncle served at his German restaurant.

[lukestar]

This is the recipe I use:

Black Forest Cherry Cake

It is the closest recipe to the one my uncle served at his German restaurant.

←

The cake I speak of did not have cherrys or a cherry filling. It had a chocolate frosting but the cake layers were malted tasting. They had a crunch to them kind of like a malt ball.

[NickLam]

I will second Lorna's opinion in Pierre Herme's book. The port soaked cherries make a whole world of difference and the interplay between all the components really taste good!

[Swisskaese]

This is the recipe I use:

Black Forest Cherry Cake

It is the closest recipe to the one my uncle served at his German restaurant.

←

The cake I speak of did not have cherrys or a cherry filling. It had a chocolate frosting but the cake layers were malted tasting. They had a crunch to them kind of like a malt ball.

←

I have never heard of a Black Forest Cherry Cake without cherries.

[project]

In a <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=21737&view=findpost&p=1062580">

post</a> on a thread

on the Time-Life series <i>Foods of the World</i>

I posted in part:

<blockquote>

There is a Black Forest Cherry Cake (<i>Schartzwälder Kirsch

Torte</i>) recipe that is difficult to make but good: The

cake itself has lots of eggs and some powdered cocoa but very

little flour, takes some special handling, but is unusual,

unique or nearly so. Learn how to handle the cake, get a good

source of cherries, learn how to make and handle the

decorative chocolate curls, get some whipped cream that can

hold up, use high quality <i>Kirschwasser,</i> do much of the

work in a cold kitchen (in the winter, with the windows

open!), and can have a winner.

</blockquote>

The recipe is on pages 160-162 of <i>The Cooking of

Germany</i> (1969)

and has a large picture of the final cake spread

across pages 161 and 162 and taking up about half the total

area of those two pages.

<br><br>

It would be far too expensive for a US commercial bakery to do

that recipe

at all routinely.

It's the best <i>Schartzwälder Kirsch Torte</i> I've had,

but I'm no expert and haven't compared with the best of

Bavaria and haven't worked from another source.

[SaltySnack]

Being from Shreveport, I can remember eating at Shorty Leonard's restaurant as a child and having Black Forest Cake and even now it is a staple at parties and events, and the cake does not have cherries in the version in Shreveport, LA. That is so entirely cool to me as I never knew that our Black Forest Cake was regional. As an adult, I don't eat chocolate so it would have never occured to me to wonder that our version was different.

Anyway, I just wanted to attest to lukestar's recollections and knowledge. And to state that I have replied to his request on the Louisiana forum.

[audrey551]

Good Afternoon. I am looking for an original German Black Forest Cake with the cookie bottom, sour cherries etc. Does anyone have a recipe for this. I have lots of cookbooks but cannot find one with the cookie on the bottom. I need to make this for a gentleman for his birthday. Any help would be appreciated. Thank You.

[ludja]

Interesting; I haven't seen a recipe with a cookie bottom; only with chocolate cake layers... When you say "cookie" do you mean some crunchy type of chocolate cooke or tart?

Here is a previous topic on Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cherry Cake): click

Two recipes mentioned there:

recipe from the Time Life Series "The Cooking of Germany" (three layer chocolate cake, layers brushed with kirsch syrup, filled and frosted with sweetened whipped cream with kirsch, sour cherries in between layers, chocolate shavings on the side)

recipe from Pierre Herme's "Chocolate Desserts" by Dorie Greenspan this is a modern adaptation and is described futher in the thread.

Swisskaese also gives a link similar to that from her uncle's bakery in Germany; I believe that is also cake-based.

I'm curious to hear more about this "cookie" version assuming it's not just a translation blip.

By the way, welcome to egullet, audrey551!

[ludja]

Here's some more background on Black Forest Cake from wiki: click

The earliest combination in the Black Forest of cherries, cream and Kirschwasser was probably not in the form of a cake but instead as a dessert. Cooked cherries would be served with cream and perhaps Kirschwasser. A cake combining cherries, biscuit and cream (but without Kirschwasser) probably originated in Switzerland. Today, the Canton of Zug is world-renowned for its Zuger Kirschtorte, which is a biscuit-based cake formerly oozing with Kirschwasser. A version from the Canton of Basle also exists. The confectioner Josef Keller claims to have invented Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte in its present form in 1915 in the then prominent Café Agner in Bad Godesberg. This claim, however, has never been substantiated.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte was first mentioned in writing in 1934 (250 Konditorei-Spezialitäten und wie sie entstehen, J.M. Erich Weber, Dresden 1934). At this time it was known especially in Berlin as well as at good confectioners in German, Austrian and Swiss cities. In 1949 it took 13th place in the list of best-known German cakes. From this time onwards, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte became world-renowned.

I've seen recipes for the Swiss "Zuger Kirschtorte". The cake has meringue/almond layers in addition to spongecake layers but there is no chocolate involved in the cake or frosting and also no fresh cherries. Rather kirsch is used in a syrup to brush on the cake layers and in the buttercream.

[panini]

Audrey,

I might be repeating someone, didn't have time to read.

You can use a simple pate brisee. Blind bake and use a rasp jam so the cake layer stickes to it. Then build as usual.

pan

I have also made it with a japonaise type bottom

Edited May 1, 2007 by panini (log)

[audrey551]

Audrey,

I might be repeating someone, didn't have time to read.

You can use a simple pate brisee. Blind bake and use a rasp jam so the cake layer stickes to it. Then build as usual.

pan

I have also made it with a japonaise type bottom

←

The pate brisee would work but I need to make it chocolate. Would you happen to have a recipe which would include cocoa?

[panini]

The pate brisee would work but I need to make it chocolate. Would you happen to have a recipe which would include cocoa?

←

[miladyinsanity]

I use Claudia Fleming's chocolate tart dough recipe:

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

1 large egg yolk

3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

[ludja]

So intereesting to hear about using a cookie/tart crust layer as what appears to be a base layer with this cake. As audrey551 mentioned in her first post I've never seen this in any cookbooks (some in German).

Can anyone shed any light on the practice? Are these versions in German cookbooks and/or is this an older version of the cake that people know about from speaking with Germans? An American variation? Thanks in advance for sharing information on this!

[MaxH]

So intereesting to hear about using a cookie/tart crust layer as what appears to be a base layer with this cake.  As audrey551 mentioned in her first post I've never seen this in any cookbooks (some in German).

Ditto Mimi Sheraton's 1965 German cookbook; some other modern books I checked from Germany don't even include this type of cake.

It's novel to me too, and sounds like an interesting bit of culinary information. (The more standard version Ludja cites was a favorite cake in my home on occasions when I was growing up.)

FYI my experience with these cakes is completely, or almost completely, in the US (and they were more common, in my region anyway, before about 1970) but always a specific format -- cherries, chocolate cake layers, whipped cream, chocolate shavings. You can still order them from good bakers today, but they stress that this cake doesn't keep long, with all that whipped cream.

[audrey551]

I knew I had a recipe in my library somewhere lol. Okay here it is: It is in Oetker German Home Baking. It calls for a Pastry: Sponge mixture: Filling etc. If anyone is interested in the recipe I would be happy to send it to you via email (quite long so therefore would scan and email. I have it either in English or German.

[Swisskaese]

The pate brisee or Muerbeteigboden is used as a base for the cake. You can smear cherry jam on it and then place the chocolate spongecake on top. This is not mandatory and is mostly done by professional bakeries and restaurants to keep the sponge cake from becoming soggy, since they do not always serve the cake immediately after they prepare it.

It is not used as a substitute for the chocolate spongecake! The pate brisee is just a normal one, not chocolate.

Edited May 3, 2007 by Swisskaese (log)

[CaliPoutine]

The worlds best recipe is in the December 2005 issue of Cuisine at Home. It is incredible. It makes a cherry compote out of cherry juice, dried tart cherries, cherry preserves and frozen dark cherries (I used canned tart because I couldn't get frozen, worked great.)

It also stabilizes the whipped cream filling with a cornstarch "pudding".

It uses their wonderful chocolate cake recipe. Moist and delicious. It also has grated chocolate and chocolate curls between the layers.

I cannot imagine a better one.

-Becca

←

Becca was right!! It was fabulous.