Well, the time of The Visit draws nigh, and I find myself having another query in the course of my search for the ideal Black Forest Cake. (I put some cherries in kirsch in the frisge, and some in syrup, as per your suggestions. They are preserved nicely.)
My new question is this:
The recipe I have, with regard to the filling between layers, wants you to make buttercream frosting (butter + pwdrd sugar) and then mix the cherries/kirsch in. I noticed in the comments for this recipe that some people had trouble with the filling sorta sliding out from between the layers.
Another recipe has you mix the cherries/kirsch/cherry juice with cornstarch and cook briefly to make a nice firm gel. This seems to make more sense to me; actually I’m going to gel the juice but leave the cherries raw. So I’m wondering if you folks who are conoisseurs of this cake think that I should use this delicious cherry goo AND the buttercream between layers, or the goo alone? What are you used to seeing on your cakes?
I know I may be over-thinking it, but I really want it to be perfect.
Oh, and look at this awesome idea I found for decoration!
The German lady that taught me how to make this did not use buttercream. After soaking the cherries in the Kirsch, she would drain them well. The frosting she used was whipped cream (whipping cream plus a bit of sugar.) it was whipped hard enough to hold its own but not so much that it separates. The assembly was : dab of whipped cream, cake. Layer of whipped cream. Cherries placed, not mixed, into the cream. Repeat. Frost the outside. If your cake happens to slide (this rarely happened, but the heat in Texas isn’t helpful sometimes!) you put long bamboo skewers in it to hold it in place while it fridge.
Black Forrest is my favorite cake. I prefer it not over the top sweet. Given a choice, however, Id prefer it with the buttercream and not just the goo.
I’m a lazy baker and my version of black forest cake is chocolate cake with a can of cherry pie filling mixed in.
But, if I didn’t want the cherry & goo to squish out of the cake, I’d pipe a circle of frosting just inside the top edge of the bottom cake, spread the cherries inside the circle of frosting and then place the top layer on.
What is this “frosting” abomination? BNB’s German lady had the right of it - cream is what goes between the layers (crème Chantilly for personal preference) and the cherries are just set in that by hand. Just make sure the cream/cherry layer doesn’t go the full area of the circle - leave something like the outer fifth uncreamed, this leaves sqishage room and you can pipe cream into any gaps.
I don’t know where you got your recipe, but Black Forest Cake does not use buttercream frosting nor cherry “goo”. My wife is a patissier and the Black Forest Cake she makes is similar to what Bad News Baboon described. The only difference is that the cherries are soaked in kirsch mixed with espresso and some sugar. The cherries are then placed on top of a base of whipped cream that has some icing sugar incorporated into it. No buttercream, no goo.
Yes, it is a chantilly. That is the best! I’m going to try it with a bit of espresso next time. Sounds great!
For me, the biggest issue with the cake described is that it’s overwhelmingly sweet. The sweetness will overpower the individual flavors. It should be about a good chocolate base and cherries. This cake just sounds like buttercream frosting and goo.
I’ve had Black Forest cake in the Black Forest (both Freiburg and Triberg), and I never came across hazelnuts in the cake, just a chocolate sponge, as you say. I suppose it’s possible historic recipes contained nuts, but the usual current version if the recipe does not.
I’ve no problem with some nuts, can make for quite a nice cake. But no flour would be weird for all my experiences of BFC (nut flours make a very dense cake) and anyway, not what the purported original recipe says.