What is a traditional Black Forest Cake?
A traditional Black Forest Cake is a chocolate sponge cake brushed with kirsch with a kirsch cherry filling. It is covered in whipped cream and topped with more cherries. It is not an overly sweet dessert but instead is a more complex flavours adult type dessert.
My “Black Forest Cake” is not the way you would find one made in Germany. My cake is a great chocolate cake, but it’s not a sponge. And I can not get kirsch anywhere around here. I’ve even tried in the bigger city, and nope.
But, this is a delicious chocolate cake with cherry filling, covered in whipped cream and topped with more cherries.
To make my Black Forest Cake, you need to make 3 things:
- Chocolate cake
- Cherry filling
- Homemade Whipped cream
You will also need a solid, dark chocolate bar (such as Lindt). Don’t use a bar with fillings as you are going to shave this and use it on the cake. Finally, a jar of maraschino cherries with stems attached makes for beautiful decorations.
It sounds like a lot, but it’s honestly easy to make and tastes amazing! Let’s get started.
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Recipe For Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 220 grams Cake Flour
- 65 grams Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder such as Fry's Premium
- 350 grams White granulated sugar
- 2 tsp Baking soda
- 1 tsp Baking powder
- 1 tsp Kosher salt
- 120 ml Sunflower oil or can use vegetable oil
- 2 Eggs, Large room temperature
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract
- 240 ml Buttermilk
- 240 ml Strong, hot coffee freshly brewed please
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350℉. Grease two 9-inch cake pans.
- Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium-sized bowl.
- In a separate medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Whisk in the buttermilk until combined.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and add strong, hot coffee. Whisk until everything is combined. The batter is very thin. Don't worry.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two pans. Bake in the centre of the oven for approx. 20-25 minutes. Gently rotate the pans halfway through. Start checking at 20 minutes. The cakes are done when a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Cool the cakes completely in the cake pans on a wire rack.
Cherry Filling Recipe
Cherry Filling
Ingredients
- Canned/Jarred sour cherries in water drain but keep the liquid
- 4 tsp Cornstarch
- ½ cup Of the drained sour cherry liquid
- ¼ cup Cherry flavoured liqueur
- 6 tbsp White granulated sugar
Instructions
- Drain the sour cherries, keeping the liquid available.
- In a small bowl, whisk together ¼ cup of the sour cherry liquid and the cornstarch.
- In a medium-sized sauce pot, stir together ¼ cup of the sour cherry liquid, the liqueur and the sugar. Bring to a simmer over low heat.
- Once the mixture is simmering, whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Continue to heat the liquid, whisking constantly, until it thickens. The mixture should coat the back of a spoon. This will only take a couple of minutes.
- Remove from heat and pour the mixture over the sour cherries. Stir together. Cover and cool completely before using.
How to Make Whipped Cream
Homemade Whipped Cream
Ingredients
- 500 ml Heavy Whipping Cream
- 2 tsp Pure vanilla extract
- 4 tsp Fine sugar can use granulated white sugar
Instructions
- Use either a hand mixer or your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. You can do this by hand with a whisk, but it's going to take a while and you need to whisk fast!
- Add all the ingredients into your bowl.
- Start the mixer on low speed and gradually move up to the fastest speed you have. You want to get a lot of air mixed into your liquid. Don't start out at the fastest speed or you will end up with a huge mess all over the place.
- Keep whisking until stiff peaks are formed. You will know the mixture is ready if you "dip" the whisk into the whipped cream and turn it over and the peak stays without collapsing.
- **KEEP AN EYE ON WHAT IS HAPPENING OR IF YOU OVER-MIX, YOU WILL END UP WITH BUTTER**. If you whisk past the point of whipped cream, the mixture will start to separate and you will see liquid with clumps of what is turning into butter.
Looking for another cake recipe to serve to a group? Check out this Amazing Lemon Bundt Cake.
To Assemble the Cake
- Remove your cakes from the cake pans. If your cakes have a dome, meaning they are rounded on top, use a serrated knife and level the cake. You can eat the part you cut off or throw it away. I eat it 😊.
- Fill a pastry bag with some of your whipped cream. You will need a larger star tip or, if you don’t have a pastry bag, fill a ziploc type bag with some whipped cream and cut one of the bottom corners off. You will also use this for decorating after so make sure you add about 1/3 of your whipped cream to the bag.
- Place one cake in the middle of your cake plate. Using your piping bag of whipped cream, create a ring around the cake on the top of the cake. This is to make a damn so that the cherry filling doesn’t leak out when you place the second cake on top. You want to make sure the whipped cream is tall enough so that the cherry filling will be inside the whipped cream damn.
- Add the cherry filling being careful to not push to hard up against your whipped cream damn.
- Cover the cherry filling with some whipped cream. On a side note, even though the cherries are pitted, be careful when eating this cake. We have had some pits and you don’t want to break a tooth. I just tell my family to watch out for them since I’m not going to check every cherry.
- Place the second cake, upside down, on top of the first cake. By placing it upside down, you have a nice smooth top to work with.
- Starting from the top and working your way down, cover the cake in whipped cream. I use an off set spatula to do this.
- Now comes the fun decorating part. Using your piping bag, add 8 swirls of whipped cream eventually spaced out along the top edge. Top each swirl with a maraschino cherry.
- Add a nice decorative swirl of whipped cream along the bottom of the cake where it touches the cake plate. This cleans up the bottom edge beautifully.
- Use the large holes on your box grater, grate your cold chocolate bar. I only add the chocolate to the top but feel free to add chocolate shavings to the side.
It’s difficult to see the cake underneath, but the whipped cream ring is sitting on top of the cake right along the edge.
The Results
This cake is moist and full of flavour. Because it is made with fresh whipped cream, it does need to be covered and refrigerated. Best if eaten within 3 days.
Thank you for stopping by and checking out this delicious chocolate cake with cherry filling.
