2013 Cooking Club Week 22: Black Forest Gateau

Neyite

In my opinion, a good Black Forest Gateau should be chocolaty, boozy, and topped with loads of cream. Disappointed in the bland shop ones, I tweaked a few variations of BFG until I arrived at this one. So. Your ingredients:



Start by preheating your oven to 175 degrees. Grease, flour and line with greaseproof paper 3x 8 inch round tins.


For the cake:
175g Cream Flour
265g White Sugar
45g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
half teaspoon baking soda / bread soda
half teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla essence
80ml vegetable oil
160ml milk.


Combine all the dry ingredients (no need to sieve) Then add in the wet ingredients, using an electric whisk to mix it smooth.



Pour into your tins evenly. It will be less than a cm thick in the tin, but thats fine. It will expand in the oven.
Bake for about 35 mins checking with a wooden skewer if done. Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

For the Cherry Filling:
2 tins black cherries
135 g sugar
20g cornstarch
three-quarters teaspoon of vanilla essence
half a cup of cherry juice
a quarter cup of cherry liquer.

Drain the two tins of cherries, reserving the juice. Set aside some of the better looking cherries for the top of the cake - (enough to cover but leaving a couple of cm from the edge for the cream piping. ) put the remaining cherries in a saucepan along with the sugar, cornstarch, vanilla essence, and cherry juice.


Simmer until sugar is fully dissolved and with a hand blender, blend so that the cherries are all chopped up. Add in a generous quarter cup of cherry liqueur towards the end, then set aside and allow to cool.



(Now this is where I ran out of time to finish it and add photos , but will add them later when the cake is complete)


For the cream:
475ml Cream
25g icing sugar

Whip up the two ingredients above - while all this sugar makes a sweet cake I find being generous with the kirsch balances it out a bit. Plus the sugar seems to lengthen the life of the cream on the cake by a few days, should it last that long.

When your cakes and cherry filling are fully cool (and therefore not likely to melt the cream!) smooth a layer of the filling over a layer, followed by cream, then the next cake layer, filling cream etc. Arrange the whole cherries you set aside earlier on top of the cake, and spoon over the filling so it coats the cherries. Pipe cream around the edge, and liberally cover with chocolate sprinkles/ shavings.

Dizzyblonde

I love BFG! Can't wait to see the finished product.
Just one thing Neyite - it seems you've omitted the cocoa powder from the ingredients list.

Neyite

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

I love BFG! Can't wait to see the finished product.
Just one thing Neyite - it seems you've omitted the cocoa powder from the ingredients list.

Whoops! Added it in now.

foodaholic

My best friend loves BFG so I promised him I'd make it.
Dying to see your final photo

angeldelight

Oh I would love to make this for my dad on Sunday - he loves BFG!! Is cherry liquer readily available? Will have to get up early Sunday morning to try and get this done

Neyite

angeldelight wrote: »

Oh I would love to make this for my dad on Sunday - he loves BFG!! Is cherry liquer readily available? Will have to get up early Sunday morning to try and get this done

I personally found getting it tricky when I bought my bottle about a year and a half ago, but it was before christmas and shops were stocking up with the usual tipples and kirsch didnt seem to be in huge demand. :P

The larger tescos stock it usually.

It is expensive though, but like I say, it lasts ages - that bottle will be nearly 2 years old before I finish it, and I make BFG about every 6 weeks as its a favourite in our house.

What I would suggest is to make the cake on the saturday night, and the cherry filling, as these must be absolutely cool before layering with the cream.

So, Saturday afternoon/night make your cakes, take them out of the tin to cool, on a wire rack and put in the fridge when cooled on the racks, (not stacking the cake parts together though). Make up the cherry filling and put in a bowl in the fridge until the next day.

Then on sunday, whip the cream, then assemble the cake:

Cake layer on plate
Cherry filling
Cream
Cake layer
Cherry filling
Cream
Cake layer
Whole cherries in centre of cake top
spoon a little cherry filling over whole cherries
Pipe cream around the top edge of the cake as it helps keeps the cherry filling from dripping down the sides.
Sprinkle with grated chocolate or chocolate flakes.

If you want to give the cake a decent booze kick, you can mix a few tablespoons of the leftover juice from the cherry tin with a few tablespoons of kirsch and brush over the cake just before assembly. Not too much or it makes the cake soggy and fall apart, but just a light brushing over will be fine.