From the land of cuckoo clocks*

Okay, I've shied away from it for too long. It's time for me to get over my fear of falling completely flat on my face (at least in culinary terms) and just bake it. I refer, of course, to the Black Forest Gateau, which will be making an appearance in the upcoming dessert party. This baking year, and hence this blog, started with a cake-that-definitely-wasn't-a-black-forest-gateau, but was definitely intended as being along the same lines. Now, I think I'm ready to give the real thing a shot, or as-close-to-the-real-thing-as-availability-of-ingredients-will-allow at least. The recipe is as authentic as I could find - at least it's very much based on a couple of recipes I found that were in German...

Black Forest Gateau
Ingredients
For the cake:

• 140g Dark chocolate
• 75g Butter
• 6 eggs
  
• 180g Caster sugar
• 100g Plain flour
• 50g Cornflour
• 2tsp Baking powder
  

For the filling:

• 800g Drained sour cherries**
• 500ml Cherry juice
• 4tbsp Cornflour
• 2tbsp Caster sugar
• 100ml Kirsch
  
• 75ml Cherry brandy
• 800ml Double cream
• 45g Icing sugar
  
• 3tsp Vanilla extract
• Glacé cherries
• 100g Grated dark chocolate

Method

1. Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites until stiff.
2. Whisk the egg yolks with the caster sugar until fluffy.
3. Melt the chocolate and butter over a double boiler. and stir into the egg yolks/sugar mixture.
   
4. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and fold in.
5. Fold in the egg whites.
6. Pour into a lined cake tin and bake at 175C/Gas Mark 4 for 40-45mins.
7. Remove from tin and allow to cool completely upside-down on a wire rack.
8. Cut the cooled cake horizontally into three layers.
9. Dissolve the cornflour and caster sugar in the cherry juice and bring to the boil.
10. Add the cherries and allow to cool slightly, then add half of the kirsch.
11. Mash into a gel and allow to cool completely.
12. Spread the cherry gel over the bottom layer of the cake.
13. Beat the cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract until stiff.
14. Spread a quarter of the cream over the cherry mixture and add the second layer of the cake.
15. Sprinkle the remaining kirsch over the second layer.
16. Spread another quarter of the cream over the top of the second layer and then add the top of the cake.
    
17. Sprinkle the cherry brandy over the cake.
18. Reserve enough cream to pipe cream rosettes around the edge. Cover the sides of the cake with the remaining cream.
19. Cover the cream and top the cake with grated chocolate.
20. Pipe cream rosettes around the edge of the top and place a glacé cherry on top of each one.

Here's the mixture at the end of step 3, simply because I thought it looks quite pretty.
And the batter about to be put in the oven (step 5). I actually forgot to add the flour until after I'd folded the egg white in, so hopefully I didn't knock too much air out of the mixture - though I did come perilously close to accidentally baking a flourless Black Forest Gateau!Straight from the oven - the top looks a bit uneven and slightly burnt......But it looks rather awesome when turned out upside-down!Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of the story of the Black Forest Gateau!

*Yes, cuckoo clocks actually originate from the Schwarzwald in southern Germany, not Switzerland as most people seem to think.
**If anyone is wondering (as I was) where you can get sour cherries in the UK, I eventually found them in syrup in big jars in Lidl. They're cheap too - 99p for a jar with 350g (drained weight) of Morello cherries.