Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

Yes, ladies and gents! My personal cooking adventure is going on. This weekend was really tough as Ines, my lovely flat-mate has a b-day today and I could not relly come up with a present... so, I have finally decided to bake her a birthday cake. A really special one too... as it is one of the most world known baking specialities... directly from the Black Forest region in Germany - behold: Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte!

When I look back at this, this is the first time I was really doing a big cake like this and to be honest, I knew, the Kirschtorte is no fun to do... but it was a challenge and I am really keen on taking those, so as the first step, I researched the recipe. It was not hard to find... There are two sites, which give you a pretty detailed info about how to do it: here (in German) and here (in English). Both are very similar, so I took that for a sign of proof and started baking. That was yesterday... and I failed miserably... The thing, which came out of the oven was a misformed chocolate flying disc hard as stone... well, not as stone, but certainly hard to eat... what a failure! I began to search for the mistake in my making and found several: first, I was too harsh on the dough, as the ingredients should have been fonded in while I have been mixing it pretty hard... using a electric hand mixer... no wonder the thick (but yummy)chocolate mass was not going to grow in the oven... I also have put the oven too high on temperature... Well, nevertheless... I felt like this is not going to bring me down and I will succeed, so I made myself a promise to try again day after. (Which is today... and I tell you, I overdid myself! *just my humble opinion*)

I have been following a different recipe now, from the Bayerisches Kochbuch of my other flat-mate Melanie. For the cake body you need:

6 eggs
1 tablespoon lemon juice
125 g sugar
60 g fine flour
30 g Maizena
40 g cacao
bit of baking powder
butter and flour for the baking tray

First, separate the egg whites from the yellows. The whites have to be beaten thoroughly. Then, add the one tablespoon of lemon juice and mix it in. Mix in also the sugar - but slowly, spoon by spoon. Beat it further more, until it is white and shiny. It should look something like this:


Separately, beat the egg yellows. Also separately, mix the fine flour, Maizena, cacao and baking powder together. Now, slowly and bit by bit fond these ingrediences into the beaten egg whites. The volume of the mass will diminish but not too much... Be very careful when doing this, as I have screwed up at this point last time. When finished, your dough is ready and may be poured into the buttered and floured baking form. Does it also look like this?


Put the form into the pre-heated oven and bake it for around 45 min. at 180 degree Celsius.
When finished, place it outside the oven to cool. Later, take off the form. Be careful not to brake the cake! (I almost did!) *g*
Go to sleep or have sex with your boy/girl/friend/buddy and come back later... (when the cake is cold)
So far, you have been a master cook and did well. Now, depending on the thickness of your base, decide whether you will cut it into two or three slices. As I was using a really big form (ca. 28 cm in diameter), I could only cut it in two.
As the next step, I have prepared the cherry filling. You need:

1 big jar (500 g) of sour cherries
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
4 tablespoons of Maizena
10 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 or 3/4 liter of whipped creme
two small glasses of cherry liquor
chocolate splinters for decoration

This is the return to the previously mentioned recipes... both start with preparation of the cherry filling: separate the cherries from their sirup (and place about 14 cherries aside for final decoration). Put 1/4 liter of the cherry sirup and the lemon juice in a souce pan and cook it. When boiling, add 4 tablespoons of sugar and the same amount of Maizena. This will thicken the mass... mix it and let it boil for one minute. Now, add the cherries and slowly - not to brake them - fond them into this sauce. When boiling again, you are finished.

Now, take the bottom slice of your base and sprinkle it with the cherry liquor. Then, place a thin spread of whipped cream on it. On top of this, draw three symmetrical circles (using a pastry bag - I did not have one, so I was fighting the whipped cream with a spoon, which can get quite messy), in between which you will place the cherry souce. Do this. You may use all of your souce. Now, you should have created a nice white-and-red circle pattern. (I am very sorry, I do not have a picture of this, as it would help most to have a look.) Place your second cake slice on top of it, press it down gently. If you sliced your cake base into two, you are finished and may began spreading the rest of the whipped cream on top and decorating the cake. (If you still have a third slice left, sprinkle the second again with the cherry liquor and cover it thick with whipped cream. Place the third slice on top of this.)

As decoration, I did not use much... just the rest of the cream, spread all over the cake and the cherries on the top of it in a circle... and grated chocolate in the middle. The result is still waiting to be eaten and looks like this:


Now, how does your look? And how does it taste? Let me know! :)

Happy Birthday, Ines!

Listening to: Rebekah Jordan and her amazing EP called The Trouble with Fiction