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Recipe: Black Forest Gateau

April 5, 2013 9 Comments Filed Under: Food, Recipes, Uncategorized

It’s snowing, in April. As large snowflakes, big as tissues, fell yesterday at a blizzarding rate, I needed comfort, a reminder of childhood skiing holidays (as an adult I can’t afford them). I loved the food we had when skiing: gluwein; frankfurters, sauerkraut and mash with yellow Austrian mustard; raclette and cheese fondue and hot frothy chocolate drinks. I wanted to make something that suggested snow ploughing between pine trees, forests and frost.
I had recently been sent some early cherries, called ‘Glamour’, from a grower, Mr Ortiz, from a farm in Lleida, Spain. Unusually these cherries are available in March and April. It’s a good name for this fruit, as there is something both pristine and pornographic about the cherry. This led me inevitably to baking a Black Forest Gateau, a notorious relic from dinner party menus of the 70s but actually dating from the 1930s. The Black Forest Gateau cake is rather more ‘Cabaret’ and Liza , all sheer dark stockings with glossy red lipstick, than sweet trollies in suburban restaurants and Alison Steadman in Abigail’s Party. 

Recipe for Black Forest Gateau:

You’ll need two 8 inch sandwich tins, buttered up to the edges and lightly floured. Lined with baking paper if you wish. 

Cake bit:
80g unsalted butter, room temperature

200g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

280g caster sugar

3 tsps baking powder

2 pinches of salt

240ml whole milk

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Decoration and filling:
I jar of black cherries in kirsch (cherry liqueur), drained, kirsch set aside
2 punnets of cherries (Glamour are available at M & S, Harrods, high end food shops)
600 ml of double cream, whisked or 150g of double cream whisked with a large tub of CoYo coconut yoghurt. This made for a slightly exotic flavour. 
2 tablespoons of icing sugar

  • Preheat the oven to 170cº.
  • Prepare the cake tins by greasing and flouring.
  • In a stand mixer, or by hand in a bowl, beat the butter until smooth, pale and fluffy.
  • Add the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, salt into the stand mixer or a bowl and beat together until combined.
  • Whisk the milk, egg, vanilla extract together then pour half into the flour mixture, beat together, then add the second half.
  • Keep scraping the sides down yeah?

  • Tip half the mixture into each sandwich tin. It doesn’t matter if it’s not smooth, I  rather like the uneven ‘mountainous’ look for this cake. 
  • Bake for 45 minutes in 160c degree conventional oven.
  • In Aga I baked for 20- 25 minutes in the bottom shelf of the baking oven. I found they rose better without the cool shelf. If you have a 2 oven, use the hot oven with the cool shelf.
  • Check they are done by sticking in a clean metal probe, if it comes out clean, they are done
  • Place on a wire rack to cool
  • Prod with the probe to make holes all over the cake, pour Kirsch cherry liqueur or the liquid from the black cherries, all over the holes. About 4 tablespoons per cake.
  • Whip the cream into soft peaks
  • Place the first cake on a plate and ladle 1/3 of the cream onto the base, leaving a border all around so that it doesn’t squirt everywhere when you put the top on.
  • Add half the cherries from the black cherries in Kirsch
  • Place the top cake on, ladle on the rest of the cream.
  • Add the rest of the black cherries in Kirsch
  • Add the punnets of fresh cherries, stud them in the cream and stack them artfully in a pyramid shape on top. You want a look of tumbling plentitude.
  • Dust with icing sugar in a tea strainer.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous

    April 5, 2013 at 6:53 pm

    That looks incredible! The poor BFG still has such a bad image, but it really is sublime made properly.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    April 5, 2013 at 11:58 pm

    Blissfully, stupendously gorgeous. And I love the idea of snowflakes as big as tissues. Thank you.

    Reply
  3. theundergroundrestaurant

    April 6, 2013 at 1:50 am

    Thank you!
    Those snowflakes were crazy big!

    Reply
  4. Debs Dust Bunny

    April 6, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    All I can say is, FOOD PORN! That is so sexy!

    Reply
  5. Anonymous

    April 6, 2013 at 1:16 pm

    Wow, wow, WOW! How gorgeous! I can almost taste it from those beautiful pictures.

    Reply
  6. Bethan

    April 6, 2013 at 7:53 pm

    Looks amazing! Where did you purchase the Kirsch from?

    http://audacityoffood.blogspot.co.uk/

    Reply
  7. theundergroundrestaurant

    April 6, 2013 at 8:30 pm

    Thanks guys!
    Bethan: I think you can buy kirsch from many places now, many supermarkets etc. Always useful to have a bottle in the cupboard for things like this and cheese fondues.
    But for this cake I used the kirsch juice from the black cherries.

    Reply
  8. tori

    April 8, 2013 at 8:54 am

    Every year for his birthday the spouse requests as his present a variation on black forrest- last year it was as a tart, with a pimped up ice cream. But I think the original is still the best- and this one looks particularly sublime.

    Reply
  9. Magnolia Verandah

    April 9, 2013 at 7:52 am

    Oh my who could resist this. How good do those cherries on the top look. This is on list for next weekend!

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

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Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
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Tonka bean galette des rois

Serves 8
Ingredients
* 140 g caster sugar
* 125 g salted butter, softened
* 100 g ground almonds
* 2 eggs, medium
* 1 tonka bean, grated
* 2 packs ready made butter puff pastry on a roll
* 1 yolk for brushing the pastry
Instructions
* Preheat your oven to 200c.

* Blend the butter with the sugar then add the almonds. Make sure it’s well mixed. Add in the 2 eggs one at a time, then add the tonka bean.

* If using a block: divide the puff pastry into two and roll out to 5mm thick. 
* Make two circles about 15 cm’s each in diameter. Lay one circle on a silicone mat/parchment paper on a baking tray and fill with the almond cream leaving a 3 cm border around the edge. 
* Paint the border with the egg yolk. Then lay the other circle on top, sealing the edges with a fork. 
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Mapo tofu is probably my favourite Sichuan dish. T Mapo tofu is probably my favourite Sichuan dish. This is a vegan version. ***

Ingredients:
- 400 g box of soft tofu not silken
- 5 soaked dried shiitake mushrooms, diced, keep water
- 1 red bell pepper, finely sliced
- 400 g fresh shiitake mushroom, sliced thinly
- 400 ml vegetable stock
- 1 thumb fresh ginger, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 4 tbsps groundnut or vegetable oil
- 3 tbsp fermented bean paste
- 1 or 2 small red chillies, minced or a spoonful of Chinese chilli paste
- 1 tsp heaped sichuan peppercorns, finely ground
- 2 tbsps soy or tamari sauce
- 2 tbsp cornflour in 3 tbsps water, mixed into a slurry
- 4 spring onions, finely sliced
- large pinch fresh coriander leaves

Prepare the tofu by cutting it into one inch cubes and soaking it in hot but not boiling salted water. Drain after 15 minutes.
Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms, covering them in boiling water. Leave until soft, then dice the mushrooms. Retain the mushroom soaking water and add to the vegetable stock water.
Prepare the other ingredients so they are ready to stir-fry: red bell pepper, fresh mushrooms, ginger, garlic.

Using a wok or deep frying pan, add the oil and heat to frying temperature. Add the bell peppers,fry for a couple of minutes, then add fermented bean paste, chilli paste or chillies, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sichuan pepper.
Add the mushroom/vegetable broth and simmer on high for a couple of minutes.
Carefully add the cubes of tofu, taking care not to break them too much.
Add the cornflour slurry, stirring for a couple of minutes.
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