a tasty steak sauce.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 40 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 10 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 2 to 8 layer inch round cake |
Ingredients
- 1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour
- ⅔ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ cup shortening
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups buttermilk
- ½ cup kirschwasser
- ½ cup butter
- 3 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 teaspoon strong brewed coffee
- 2 (14 ounce) cans pitted Bing cherries, drained
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon kirschwasser
- 1 (1 ounce) square semisweet chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line the bottoms of two 8 inch round pans with parchment paper circles. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and 1 teaspoon salt. Set aside.
- Cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Beat in flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk, until combined. Pour into 2 round 8 inch pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool completely. Remove paper from the cakes. Cut each layer in half, horizontally, making 4 layers total. Sprinkle layers with the 1/2 cup kirshwasser.
- In a medium bowl, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add confectioners sugar, pinch of salt, and coffee; beat until smooth. If the consistency is too thick, add a couple teaspoons of cherry juice or milk. Spread first layer of cake with 1/3 of the filling. Top with 1/3 of the cherries. Repeat with the remaining layers.
- In a separate bowl, whip the cream to stiff peaks. Beat in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon kirshwasser. Frost top and sides of cake. Sprinkle with chocolate curls made by using a potato peeler on semisweet baking chocolate.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 693 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 89 g |
| Cholesterol | 107 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Saturated Fat | 17 g |
| Sodium | 468 mg |
| Sugars | 70 g |
| Fat | 34 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This was not a good cake. I baked it fo the minimum time and the cake itself came out dry. The filling recipe had to have been wrong because after using 1/2 C butter and adding only 2C powdered sugar it was already crumbly. I had to add a ton of other liquid to get it to the correct consistency. The frosting recipe also appeared to be wrong because there was no sugar in it. I ended up scraping it off and just using Cool Whip so that I had something to take to my party. Then when we cut into the cake the cherries spurted out the sides and made a mess. Will definitely not make again.
Way too much liquor in this, to make it work the second time I reduced the kirsch in the whipped cream to 1 tsp, soaked fresh chopped cherries (instead if canned) in kirsch overnight instead of adding it to the layers of cake, reduced sugar in filling to 1.5 cups, increased coffee to 2 tsp in filling, replaced shortening with butter in cake.
Turned out great, so wanted to pass on what I did (I took a lot of time to read previous reviews). Recipe is not very detailed. 1. Cake part – Used only 1 Cup of sugar in the cake part instead of 1 1/2 Cup. 2. Cutting cake into layers – Chilled cake a bit before cutting. Used paring knife to mark and cut easily with large serrated knive. Both cakes rose somewhat into a dome so cut “top” off of one of the cakes for inside layer. 3. Kirschwaser – Only sprinkled about a Tablespoon of Kirschwaser on the first three layers. Put bottom layer on your cake plate, then sprinkle 1 T of Kirschwaser, then filling frosting, then move to next layers. 4. Filling – I made buttercream frosting with 16 oz confectioners sugar, 1/2 C butter, 4 Tablespoons of strong coffee and 1 teaspoon of marashino cherry juice. 5. Cherries – I used one 21 ounce can of premium cherry topping. I marinated the garnishing cherries (for top) in the kirschwaser overnight – yum! 6. Filling continued – after frosting bottom layer of cake with buttercream frosting, spread 1/3 of remaining cherry topping. I cut whole cherries at least in half. Then put next layer on, 1 T kirschwasser, frosting, more cherries, repeat. 7. Whipping cream top and sides – add your Kirschwasser and vanilla early in the whipping of the cream. I also added about 2 teaspoons of sugar. So good! 8. Garnishing tip – make sure you blot your cherries on top so that they don’t mess up your pretty white frosting! Rave reviews from my guests and fa
Very nice but next time I would use whipping cream in all the layers not the butter cream.
Made exactly as recipe indicated and everyone loved it. A few assembly tips–be sure to let Kirsch soak in and dry a bit before you frost with buttercream or it will tear the cake a bit.
It wasn’t dry at all!I actually made it into a cupcake. (
This is the third time I’ve made this. It’s very, very good. I didn’t change anything.
Made this for my daughters birthday (same cake every year, she is now 24) and everyone loved it!
YUM…wonderful!
super easy and it can make a great dessert for any occation. but if you want to make this recipie even better switch the unswettened cocoa powder with half regular sweetened cocoa it will come out even better. ;P
SO AWESOMELY YUMMY! I made it for a contractor friend at work for her birthday today. I replaced the butter w/ canola oil and the milk for 1 can of diet cream soda (I have a dairy allergy). It was SO MOIST and PERFECT! Thank you SO MUCH for sharing a WONDERFUL chocolate cake recipe!!
Excellent cake! I made for a German dinner party and it was a hit.
For the amount of time I put into making this cake I was very disappointed with the results. This cake was dry, did not keep well (frosted with whipped cream like the recipe calls for) and did not have a strong flavor. If I ever make it again I will simplify the recipe by a) follow other users’ suggestions and simply use pie filling instead of the more expensive canned cherries b) use a dark chocolate cake mix c) frost with either more cherry pie filling or a light chocolate frosting
This recipe is awesome. Love to bake, never made a black forest cake before and it definitely was in the top 2 best cakes I’ve ever made and this was a first try. I only made a few changes for extra flavor and color. I used 1 can dark sweet cherries and 1 can of red tart ones, added about 2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup to my whip cream and also added a couple spoons of the dark sweet cherry juice to the whip cream as well. Will definitely make over and over!
I think I’m more of a traditionalist – preferring the whipped cream slightly sweetened, and no buttercream. I usually have a cherry filling, instead of just cherries. In my opinion, the buttercream was too sweet, and having two “icings” made the flavor inconsistent. I would rather have a more sweetened whipped cream and use that between the layers, with home made cherry filling, and the whipped cream as an icing. On the plus side, I did like the fact that the cake was brushed with cherry juice (instead of Kirsch since I don’t use alcohol). This was one of my worse black forest cakes.
This is my family’s favorite cake recipe. We save it for special occasions like Christmas eve and birthdays because it is THAT GOOD. It is decadent, yet not overly sweet. The flavors of the cream, chocolate, cherries, and liquor all come together for a perfect, elegant cake. Seriously. You won’t be disappointed. And it is EVEN BETTER on the second day, so I try to make this cake at least a day in advance if I can. If not, that’s fine—it just means better leftovers :).
I definitely agree with the other reviewers who wrote the majority of people who rated this recipe highly, completely modified the recipe. Therefore the recipe on it’s own needs a bit of tweaking. I thought I was going to be bringing a wonderful dessert for Thanksgiving dessert, but this cake was a flop. The butter creme was very sweet and the whipped cream bland (even after adding 4 tablespoons of confectioners sugar) and didn’t even one another out. My cake was also very hard to slice without all the layers falling apart, leaving an unattractive glob on plates. In addition, this is a cake where you need to bite into all flavors at once to appreciate it and with the blob on plates it was kind of hard to do so. Although the chocolate cake alone wasn’t bad, I’ll continue to look for other Black Forest Cake recipes. God Bless! xoxo
I’ve made this recipe twice now for my husband’s birthday and it has been a hit both times!
This was a triumph! I just had to leave a note here attesting to its huge success–it’s hard to overstate my satisfaction. This cake was great–so delicious and moist!
Made this for my husband’s birthday – best cake ever! To split layers I always use strong thread. Soak your sweet (not tart!) cherries overnight. It was an unbelievable success. Thank you!
Nice cake, but not sold on the texture of the filling. As per other comments, doubled the butter but did not increase the amount of confectioners’ sugar. Was still _very_ sweet on its own, but didn’t overpower the cake/cherries/cream. Unfortunately it was sort of gritty, likely due to the anti-clumping starches in the sugar. Everyone else liked it way more than I did. Also used dehydrated skim milk in the whipped cream as recommended, the swirls kept their shape for the week it took us to eat it. One more note, I used fresh sweet cherries and soaked them in kirsch. Unfortunately the party date was changed, so they continued soaking for several days and I was worried about them being too strong, not having much cherry taste left, etc. I ended up mixing in additional fresh ones when baking the cake – this turned out OK but the textures clashed a bit, and I would say it wasn’t necessary.