Black Forest Cake
- preparation

is to take a chocolate cake of whatever persuasion I am trying at the moment.

I am assuming that if you want to make this, you know how to make a cake, or at least can buy a chocolate sponge from the supermarket!

It is probably best to use a fairly dry cake, you will see why shortly.

I have, however had success with mud cake, and madeira cake among others.

If you haven't made chocolate cake before, use any basic cake recipe you are familiar with and substitute one tablespoon of flour for one of cocoa powder.

For the authentic Black Forest Cake recipe, see the last page
in this section.

We start the day before you want to bake the cake, with a large can of dark pitted cherries. I use the bitter morello variety, but who follows recipes! The maraschino type are too strongly flavoured and sweet for this recipe. Glace or crystallized cherries are also too sweet.

Drain the liquid from the can and replace with Kirsch. This is variously known as Kirschwasser or cherry schnapps.

If you can't find it you can use cherry brandy or cherry liqueur, but this tends to be too sweet (and more expensive).

Place the covered can in the refrigerator overnight to soak the cherries.

Next we assemble our masterpiece.

IN THIS SECTION -

black forest cake intro
preparation(this page)
assembly and presentation
your chocolate cake recipe