Homemade Black Forest (Mini) Cake Recipe (video)

[Saviolo]

We did a recipe for sort of deconstructed black forest brownies a while ago, but we've never actually done black forest cake! This is one of my very favourite cakes with the contrast between the chocolate and the cherries, with the light and fresh whipped cream. You can, of course, use canned cherry pie filling from the store for this, but we find that to be a little too sweet, most of the time. We had these beautiful Ontario sour cherries we got from the farmer's market this summer (pitted and frozen), so we used those to make the filling.

The cognac is entirely optional, and more traditionally should be Kirsch. Bourbon would also be good with cherry, or you could also use an orange liquer like Grand Marinier, Triple Sec, or Cointreau, or you can leave the booze out entirely! We flavoured the whipped cream with vanilla paste and sugar, but you could eliminate the vanilla. We like the contrast of that with the chocolate cake, and it really brightens up all of the flavours in the dessert.

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[AllaN01Bear]

1. ohm myyy.

[Kali]

2. so jealous of your cherries!

I have never in my life seen a fresh tart cherry. or frozen for that matter!

[Saviolo]

3. You can totally use fresh sweet cherries.

Bing or Rainier or Black cherries will all work with this. They're all quite sweet, though, and we prefer it to be a bit tart.

Even frozen sweet cherries if you can find'em!

We found these lovely sour cherries at a farmer's market and bought them hoping we'd find a way to use them, and this seemed like the perfect excuse! Ontario has an embarassment of riches wrt. stonefruit.

[Kali]

4. oh no, I think Schwarzwlder Kirschtorte has to have tart cherries

I usually use canned pie cherries, not pie filling. the color is horrible but at least they taste ok. I have several lbs of dry tart cherries that might be OK reconstituted (soaked in kirsch?)

I don't know why nobody around here carries frozen, though.

My German friend says her mother makes it with (home canned) cherry jam, but that seems even more sweet. perhaps their cake and whipped cream are less sweet to start.