chocolate and glace cherry cake

Chocolate and glace cherry cake is my version of a deconstructed black forest gateau, the chocolate and black cherry torte. Glace cherries mixed simply into the batter, cream served on the side, it’s a mere suggestion of the black forest cake...

I’ve never tried, let alone baked, Black Forest gâteau. It’s iconic and a throwback at the same time. Crisp chocolate biscuit base, squidgy and fudgy chocolate layer and in between them billowing cream studded with glistening cherries; all enrobed in dripping, luscious dark chocolate ganache. At least that’s my idea of a good Black Forest gateau slice. Incredibly appealing.

I wonder why it is so tempting to my mind as ordinarily I’m not a huge fan of chocolate. Chocolate cake is what I usually bake when I want to curtail my cake intake, as that is the type I resist second helpings of with the least difficulty. Blondie always wins with me over brownie and I prefer vanilla to cocoa.

Perhaps it is all in the name; I do get seduced by the sheer sound of some dishes’ names. The French are particularly good at it: just compare iles flottantes with spotted dick. Profiteroles sound fascinatingly like something you might do in your economics module and I refuse to admit that a tuile is just a decorative wafer.
German desserts are not famed for their finesse: everything is Kuchen or Stollen. Matter of fact and to the point: Mohnkuchen, Baumkuchen, Käse Strudel or Obsttorte – except Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, unexpectedly poetic and sumptuous.

Now of course you’ll have seen that this cake is not exactly Black Forest Gateau; in fact the main thing it has in common with the famous German relation are cherries – or rather the pathetic excuse for cherries that glace fruit undoubtedly is. I clearly also made away with layers and ganache, and whipped cream is served on the side.

Cherries are added straight to the batter and the batter is nothing special either, although I’m not going to diss it: it’s a great little low maintenance recipe from Samin Nosrat’s Salt Acid Fat Heat. No electric mixer, no fancy ingredients, no beating butter until pale and fluffy. This is a soft and dewy*, squidgy cake which is at the same time good enough to be layered and frosted into a proper celebration gateau.

But I didn’t – so there we have it. A stripped down, deconstructed Black Forest Gateau; it is in fact a signal, a hint, an intimation of a Black Forest Gateau; a pictogram or an acronym for it. And if you ignore my verbal emoting over this production, it is simply a super easy and reliably delicious chocolate and cherry cake.

*the word I propose to replace ‘moist’ with