Black Forest Cake

Black Forest Cake

Flan base:

  • Sugar - 7 oz. (200g)
  • 4 eggs

Mixing with a hand mixer:

  • Flour - 5.25 oz. (150g)
  • Baking cocoa - 1.75 oz. (50g)
  • Baking soda or baking powder - 1 teaspoon (sieve to avoid small lumps)

Mix flour, baking cocoa and baking soda and give it slowly to the sugar-egg batter while mixing

  • Bake at 350ºF for 20 min in a greased spring form.
  • Test with a wood piece to see if flan base in the middle is still sticky, or if it is ready.
  • Slowly let it cool down so that the flan base does not collapse.
  • Once cool, cut it into an upper and downer slice.
  • If the top of the upper slice is too dry, you can moisten it carefully, but a night in the fridge after the cake is ready should be enough.

Cherries (easy and fast way):

  • Cherry pie filling - 21 oz.
    • spread the cherries on the lower flan base slice evenly

Cherries (normally)

  • Use canned cherries.
  • Remove some of the cherry juice and bring the rest of the cherries and juice to boil.
  • Stir 1 package of vanilla pudding (cook&serve) into the juice (the one you separated) so that there are no clumps.
  • When the cherries are boiling add the juice-pudding mixture and make it boil again.
  • Let it cool down and spread the cherries on the lower flan base slice evenly.

Whipped Cream:

  • Heavy cream - 16 oz. (cooled in the fridge)
  • Sugar - 2 tbsp
    • Mix with the hand mixer (about 30 sec. – 1 min)
  • Add cream stabilizer - 2 bags (e.g. Whip it by Dr. Oetker)
  • Continue stirring until it is solid enough (if you stir to long, the heavy cream could become like butter, but it never happened to me, so no need to worry).
  • When ready, take the upper part away for the icing because the lower part will be less solid.
  • When cherries on the flan base are completely cooled down, make a thin layer of whipped cream on the cherries and put the upper slice of the flan base on top.
  • Now you can decorate the whole cake like you wish.

I make a layer of whipped cream on the whole cake and use the additional cream for the icing. I also use red jam (cherry or strawberry) and some chocolate graters for decorating (in Germany we use this always to make whipped cream, but it is not this common in the US). You can read about it here.

I tried once food starch and it worked, but you could still taste the food starch out of it. Confectioner's sugar is better because it contains food starch but you can't taste it.