Black Forest Gateau

Black Forest Gateau - who remembers the 70's aspirational pudding?  Popular at about the same time as home freezing, and mass catering.... it has a terrible reputation, and most of it is undeserved.   Faced with making a quick gluten free treat at this year's Stour Festival (by special request of Catherine, one of the most fabulous sopranos I know) I thought I'd try something different.   This one uses my really fast and easy chocolate cake, and the resultant sandwich of cream, cherries poached in cassis and melting  chocolate ganache is making my mouth water!   I chose to make the cherry jam, but you could always just open a jar.  

I think this is the first time I've ever blogged a pudding that hasn't actually been eaten, so I can tell you nothing about how it tastes (maybe that's a good thing!),  As you can see, I was having problems with the cherry jam, but it all adds to the appeal...

Quick Black Forest Gateau

  Quick Black Forest Gateau

Jam:

8oz/250g cherries  

Jam sugar to taste (or standard sugar)

Good slug of cassis or kirsch

(or 1 pot good quality cherry jam)

Cake:

3 large eggs

1 cup caster sugar

1 cup self raising flour (or a flour blend)

pinch of salt

2 tbsp cocoa

½ cup milk with a teaspoon of butter melted into it

Filling and Topping:

500ml/approx. 1pt double cream

4oz/110g dark cooking chocolate

4oz/110g cherries (at least) for decoration

more cassis/kirsch

Start by making the cherry “jam”.  Stone the cherries and bring them to the simmer with the sugar and a small quantity of water (just enough to cover the base of the pan).  Add the alcohol and leave it just above simmering to reduce the cherry juice (don’t boil them to bits!).  Cherries have very little pectin, so I ended up scooping out the cherries and boiling the juice with some commercial pectin to make it gel.  You could use arrowroot or cornflour, about 1 tsp.  Allow it to cool and pray it will set.  (If you use a jar of jam, get it out of the jar, warm it up with some cassis and allow it to cool again before using).

Now the cake.  Preheat the oven to 180 deg C, and line the base of two 8” sandwich tins with non-stick baking parchment. 

Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy (longer the better).   Fold in the sifted flour, cocoa and salt, then add the hot milk and butter.    Pour the mixture into the tins and shake it slightly to level it.  Bake for about 12-15 minutes until it is well risen, brown and rises back when pressed with a gentle finger.    Turn out of the tins onto a rack and leave to cool.

Melt the chocolate with 75ml/2floz pint double cream, and then stir in more cream until the mixture is glossy.   Cool in the fridge so that it doesn’t pour off the cake. 

To assemble, put the base cake onto the serving dish and give it a good sprinkling of cassis/kirsch.  Whip ½ pint/225ml of the double cream and add that next, followed by the cooled cherry jam.  Put the next cake on, and then pour on the chocolate top, spreading it so that it just meets the sides (and hopefully trickles down artistically).   Chill for 10-15 minutes before adding the final cherries for decoration.