Black Forest Cake (kind of) from YouTube
I don’t know why this random YouTube video inspired me, but it did. I saw the video and thought it might be a fun recipe to try. By coincidence, my brother-in-law was going to be visiting in a few weeks and had suggested we do an involved baking project. The two seemed like a perfect combination! So we were off to the races.
The first step was to buy the equipment that I lacked: an adjustable cake form, a shallow silicon baking sheet, some gold leaf. I’m not sure if edible gold leaf should go in the equipment or ingredients category. It doesn’t seem like much of an ingredient since you can’t taste it and it has no nutritional value (it just passes through you undigested). Then I needed to sit down and figure out what the recipe actually was. As you can see from watching the video, it’s quite sketchy on the details, and there are a couple of places where I needed to improvise. So here’s the recipe I used, based largely on Denise Castagno’s video but with some changes for US ingredient availability and filling in the gaps in the recipe:
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Whipped Vanilla Ganache
100 g white chocolate
seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod
500 ml cream, divided
5 g powdered gelatin
Dark Chocolate Biscuit
30 g dark chocolate
70 g butter
33 g almond flour
33 g powdered sugar
22 g cocoa powder
5 eggs, separated
33 g granulated sugar
25 ml cream
Crunchy Layer
75 g corn flakes, lightly crushed
75 g dark chocolate, melted
25 g hazelnut praline
300 g raw hazelnuts
225 g granulated sugar
3 tbsp water
3 tsp neutral oil
Cherry Gelée
400 g cherries, pitted and halved
120 g granulated sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
8 g powdered gelatin
Chocolate Ganache
100 g dark chocolate
100 g cream
Chocolate Collar
300 g dark chocolate
Assembly
3 tsp chopped pistachios
edible gold leaf
fruit glaze
1 cup cherry juice
1 cup sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
3 tbs corn syrup
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Whipped Vanilla Ganache
1. Break up the white chocolate into pieces and add the vanilla seeds. Pour in 200 ml hot cream and stir until completely melted and homogeneous.
2. Soak gelatin sheets in cold water and then add to the warm mixture, stirring until dissolved.
3. Add 300 ml cold cream and mix well. Cover with plastic film, pressing it against the surface and hold in fridge overnight.
Dark Chocolate Biscuit
4. In a medium bowl, break the dark chocolate into pieces and melt with the butter in the microwave. Let cool.
5. Sift together the almond flour, powdered sugar, and cocoa powder.
6. Whip together the egg whites and 33 g granulated sugar until stiff peaks form. Add 103 g egg yolks. Mix until blended.
7. Add the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula, careful not to knock out the air.
8. Add 25 ml cream to the cooled chocolate-butter mixture. Stir well. Add a small amount of the egg batter and mix.
9. Add this mixture back to the rest of the batter and mix with a spatula carefully until well mixed, but still light.
10. Spread onto a silicone mat and bake at 340F/170C for 12 minutes. Let cool.
11. Remove the silicone mat and cut an 18 cm circle in both biscuits.
12. Line the 18 cm ring with acetate, place the biscuit on the bottom.
Crunchy Layer
13. Mix together the corn flakes, melted dark chocolate, and hazelnut praline.
14. Spread the mixture on top of the chocolate biscuit layer in the 18 cm ring.
15. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
16. Meanwhile, whip ½ the vanilla ganache with a whisk until light. Reserve the rest for the final layer.
17. Transfer to a pastry bag and pipe an even layer of cream over the crunchy layer.
18. Spread evenly across the top and return the cake to the freezer for 2 hours.
Cherry Gelée
19. Bring the cherries, sugar, and lemon to a rolling boil for a few minutes until cherries are softened. Purée with an immersion blender.
20. Soak 4 g gelatin sheets in cold water. Add gelatin to the cherry purée and stir to dissolve. Let cool to room temperature.
21. Pour over the cream layer and return to the freezer for 1 hour.
Chocolate Ganache
22. Add 100 g hot cream to the dark chocolate, finely chopped, and stir until completely melted.
23. Pour over a second cake and freeze for 1 hour. Remove from the ring and place, cake-side down, on top of the cherry gelée.
Chocolate Strip
24. Make a chocolate strip 8 cm high
25. Cover with parchment paper and wrap around the 18 cm cake to set.
Assembly
26. Remove the cake from its mold and wrap with the chocolate strip.
27. Cover with the remaining ½ of the vanilla ganache. Spread evenly.
28. Prepare the cherries for decoration by pitting and halving them, and spraying them with gelatin spray. Arrange on top of the cake.
29. Top with chopped pistachios and gold leaf.
The above video was shot and edited by my brother-in-law.
