Week 44: Black Forest Cake

Black Forest Cake

We are making a lot of cakes right now and, as I have said before, I’m not the cake person…that’s Aubrey. This, however, is one of the versions of the Pillsbury Bundt cakes I discussed in our Boston Cream Pie post, and, one of the few cakes I enjoyed as a child.

This cake consists of a chocolate sponge cake, sometimes soaked in cherry liquor, cherries, whipped cream. It’s supposed to be a layer cake. Aubrey suggested making a sheet cake version and I mentioned that that would be a cop out. Layer cakes aren’t the easiest (nor my forte) to make but that was part of our challenge to ourselves. If you want some history regarding the cake this is a good post for you to read.

We found a recipe for one in our Cook’s Illustrated Baking but we found this recipe on the Taste of Home website and it didn’t include the liquor. We weren’t interested in using a cherry liquor because who needs the extra calories and we didn’t want to be boozed up. 😉 Plus, I didn’t need a bottle of liquor that would never be used again in my liquor cabinet (the limoncello is a different story).

Our substitutions were almond milk to replace the whole milk, Allulose to replace the sugar in the cake and cherry filling, and two bags of frozen cherries instead of canned ones. We used almond extract instead of the brandy or vanilla. We used regular confectioner’s sugar for the whipped cream since it was only 1/3 cup.

Ingredients

For the Cake

• 1 cup whole milk
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup baking cocoa
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

For the Filling

• 2 cans (14-1/2 ounces each) pitted tart cherries
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons cherry brandy or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the Whipped Cream

• 3 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line bottoms of two greased 9-in. round baking pans; grease paper.
2. In a large bowl, beat milk, eggs, oil and vanilla until well blended. In another bowl, whisk flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into milk mixture.
3. Transfer to prepared pans. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes before removing to wire racks; remove paper. Cool completely.
4. Meanwhile, for filling, drain cherries, reserving 1/2 cup juice. In a small saucepan, whisk sugar, cornstarch and reserved juice; add cherries. Cook and stir over low heat 10-12 minutes or until thickened and bubbly. Remove from heat; stir in brandy. Cool completely.
5. In a large bowl, beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add confectioners’ sugar; beat until stiff peaks form.
6. Using a long serrated knife, cut each cake horizontally in half. Place one cake layer on a serving plate. Top with 1-1/2 cups whipped cream. Spread 3/4 cup filling to within 1 in. of edge. Repeat twice. Top with remaining cake layer. Frost top and sides of cake with remaining whipped cream, reserving some to pipe decorations, if desired. Spoon remaining filling onto top of cake. Refrigerate until serving.

Our Experience

Making cakes goes pretty quickly. Assembling the ingredients is usually the most time consuming because, unlike a short crust for example, cakes have a lot of stuff in them! But, once assembled and measured, it’s usually a matter of mixing the wet ingredients with the dry and then baking.

Probably one of the most cumbersome parts of making a cake is cutting the parchment for the bottom of the pans and greasing them (and flouring if required).

The cherry filling is pretty much the same process as when we made cherry filling for our danishes.

We covered the cherries with plastic wrap so they wouldn’t get a film on the top.

We used a recipe to stabilize the whipped cream. I don’t go into that on this post, you can find it here. We wanted to stabilize it so it would retain its volume for at least 24 hours. This way we could make it ahead of time, transport the cake when we were finished, and deliver slices of it the day after we made it.

We were ready to assemble the cake. We cut the cakes in half and reserved some cherries for the top of the cake then got started.

We thought we had more than enough whipped cream but we made the decision to leave the layers exposed when we realized it might be a stretch to get the sides completely covered with the whipped cream we had left. We had some sugar free chocolate bars and decided to grate some of them over the top for a little more interest.

What we liked.

This cake was on the decadent side without being sweet or overly rich. Everybody gave it a thumbs up, even those who don’t like cherries (Kip). He ate some of them but picked the rest out which made the cake more edible…to him.

In my opinion, the cake was much better the following day. The flavors had a chance to marry and the whipped cream soaked into the cake just a little to moisten it up a bit more. The cake was less moist than the cake of my childhood but that’s always the case with a homemade cake vs a boxed mix. Still, it was very good. I loved the cherries and whipped cream the most. The cherries added a hint of tartness while the whipped cream added moisture without adding a lot of sweetness. These three ingredients together are a perfect combination and work in a cake as much as they work in a cherry cordial.

What we would change.

I think we would reduce the amount of corn starch in the cherries because they were pretty thick. We would also make more whipped cream or spread it thinner between the layers so we could frost the whole cake.

While l enjoyed the lack of sweetness in the dessert, Aubrey felt it could have been sweeter. So, if that might be you as well, add some more sugar to the whipped cream (keep tasting until you get there).

What we learned.

We learned how to stabilize whipped cream. We also made our first 4 layer cake with 2 fillings. We probably could have trimmed more of the crown off the top of the cakes so we didn’t have to use so much filling, but then we wouldn’t have had much cake to cut in half. I also realized that if I plan to make any more layer cakes, I need to invest in a cake carrier/storage container.

Until next week, Happy Baking!