Rose has been interested in this recipe for a while and it turns out that the best time to make it was for her birthday! So it was an experiment and a celebration at the same time. It is from A Baker’s Life by Paul Hollywood. You can find the original recipe here.
Making this cake it struck me that, much like Tiramisu, the cake acts as a conductor to all the cream, cherries, and kirsch. Though the chocolate, of course, is a definite presence.
The cake part of this didn't work well for us. Looking around, I saw that Mary Berry's Black Forest Gateau didn't have any butter and, therefore, might not have been quite as hard as the Paul Hollywood version. Or I just didn't do a good job with his chocolate sponge. That's a definite possibility.
Be that as it may, we liked the rest of the recipe very well. So we'll be making it next time using our own Easy Chocolate Buttermilk Cake. It's easy, it's foolproof and our son-in-law who loves Black Forest Cake says that a deep chocolate flavor is his favorite here ... and it's got that flavor for sure. We'll use Mary Berry's formula of baking in two 9" cake pans and horizontally slicing them in two, resulting in four layers.
BLACK FOREST CAKE
Serves 12
For the cake
One recipe Easy Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
Bake in two 9" cake pans, horizontally slicing them in two, resulting in four layers. (Or just use three of the 4 layers if that's how tall you want the cake.)
For the filling and topping 3 layers
(increase as needed for 4 layers)
3 tbsp kirsch
4 tbsp cherry jam
900ml (32fl oz) double cream, whipped
400g (14oz) tin pitted black cherries, drained and halved
To decorate
60g (2¼oz) dark chocolate (60-70%)
A handful of fresh cherries
To assemble, carefully cut the cake horizontally into three even layers (see tip below). Place one sponge on your serving plate and sprinkle evenly with 1½ tbsp kirsch. Spread half of the cherry jam over the sponge then apply a layer of whipped cream on top, and spread it out with a palette knife.
Scatter over half of the cherries. Place another sponge on top, sprinkle with the rest of the kirsch, then repeat the jam, cream and cherry layers. Place the last sponge on top. Load a palette knife with cream and spread it all over, covering the entire cake in a thin layer of cream.
Press finely grated chocolate around the sides and top.
Pipe rosettes of cream around the edge and sit whole cherries on them.
