Black Forest Gateau was originally trendy in the 1980s. For many years it was sneered at, along with Prawn Cocktail and Grilled Grapefruit, but is now enjoying a well-deserved revival. It is one of the recipes from Cherries and Mulberries: Growing and Cooking, published by Prospect Books in 2018. According to one of our recipe testers Black Forest gateau is ‘one of man’s greatest achievements’, up there with the Pyramids and the wheel.
There are two versions, one for when you can get fresh cherries and one for the rest of the year so you can enjoy it at any time. You can use black or morello cherries; morellos have a sharper taste but compliment chocolate very well.
For the cake
225 g self-raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa
225 g unsalted butter,
soft 225 caster sugar
4 large eggs
For the decoration
600g cherries
200g cherry conserve (use conserve has more whole fruit.
2 tablespoons cocoa
4 teaspoons kirsch
350 m. double cream
60 g dark chocolate, only need 20g if using conserve
Preheat the oven to 170C / Gas 3
Grease two 20cm cake tins with removable bases. Line the bases with greaseproof paper. Lightly dust the sides with flour and then shake out to remove any excess. Line the bases with baking paper.
Making the Cake
Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa into a large bowl. Add the butter, sugar and eggs. Mix roughly with a fork so the flour doesn’t fly everywhere and then mix with an electric hand whisk, moving the whisk so you get as much air as possible into the mixture. You can mix it in a processor but the cake may not rise well as you won’t get as much air into it. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of warm water so the mixture plops off a spoon.
Divide between the two tins and bake in the middle of the oven for about 40 minutes until a skewer comes cleanly out of the centre.
Leave to cool for a minute or two, then run a knife round the edge and turn the cakes out onto a wire rack, removing the paper from the base.
Using fresh cherries
Select about six to eight cherries with stalks to decorate the top of the cake.
Set a large pan of water or the bottom half of a bain-marie on a high heat, bring to the boil and turn off the heat. Immediately place the 40 g of the chocolate, broken into pieces, into the top half of the bain-marie or a heatproof bowl over the water and leave to melt. Holding the cherries by their stalks, coat the fruits in chocolate, swirling them around till they are completely covered. Put them to set on a piece of greaseproof paper. It doesn’t matter if the chocolate runs down and forms a pool at the base of each cherry; this will be hidden by the cream on top of the cake.
Pit the rest of the cherries, remove any stalks and put them into a small saucepan with the sugar and kirsch. Simmer until the cherries are soft, stirring gently. Drain the syrup into a jug (this makes a delicious sauce for people who want their cake really gooey) and leave to cool.
Decorating the cake
If you are using conserve simply mix it with the kirsch.
Whip the cream so it forms soft peaks.
Grate the remaining 20 g of chocolate, using a peeler so you get bigger shavings.
Level the surface of one cake and spread the fruit or conserve and about half the cream onto it. Put the second cake on top and spread the remaining cream on the top of the cake. Embed the chocolate-covered cherries in the cream and sprinkle with the chocolate. Keep the cake in the fridge and then serve with the sauce on the side.
The lanterns were decorating the Brogdale Cherry Blossom Festival, which Sally and I went to on a slightly grey day when we were researching the book. The centre picture shows our cherry-themed picnic.