Black Forest gateau

Ingredients

• Flour150 g
• Cocoa powder50 g
• Eggs6
• Sugar200 g
• Butter80 g
• Double cream800 ml
• Gelatine10 g
• Sour cherries — with syrup600 g
• Kirsch80 ml
• Dark chocolate150 g
• Icing sugar60 g
• Salt1 pinch

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Whisk the eggs and sugar over a water bath until warm, then beat them ten minutes to a thick pale foam.

   18 min

2. 2

   Sift the flour with the cocoa and fold it in with a spatula in three additions, then the melted butter.

   10 min

3. 3

   Bake the sponge at 175 °C for thirty-five minutes and cool it completely, ideally overnight.

   40 min

4. 4

   Cut the sponge into three layers and soak each with cherry syrup mixed with kirsch.

   12 min

5. 5

   Dissolve the gelatine, whip the cream with the icing sugar and add the gelatine in a thin stream.

   12 min

6. 6

   Assemble: sponge, cream, cherries, cream again — three times over, finishing with cream.

   20 min

7. 7

   Cover the sides and top with chocolate shavings, decorate with cherries and chill four hours.

   20 min

About the dish

The kirsch is required by law: since 2003 German food regulations allow the name Schwarzwälder only if cherry brandy is present.

The cream is whipped with a stabiliser or gelatine. Without it the cake holds for an hour and then sinks — plain cream cannot carry that height in layers.

The sponge is soaked in cherry syrup with kirsch rather than sugar syrup. The cherry acidity is needed against the sweetness of cream and chocolate.

Worth knowing

• — Cut the sponge only when completely cold, ideally the next day. Warm, it crumbles and the layers come out uneven.
• — Drain the cherries in a sieve well in advance. Wet ones soak the sponge and the cake slides when cut.
• — Make the chocolate shavings with a peeler along a bar at room temperature. Cold chocolate crumbles; warm chocolate smears.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

520 kcal

Protein

7 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

46 g

More from Germany

• Käsespätzle — Swabian egg noodles layered with cheese and buried under fried onion.
• Rinderrouladen — Thin slices of beef rolled around mustard, bacon and gherkin and braised until they give way.
• Sauerbraten — Beef steeped for days in a vinegar marinade and braised in it, with a gravy thickened on gingerbread.