Recipe: Forêt Noire (Black Forest)

Preparation :

The dough:

1/ pre-heat the oven at 356°F

2/ let the butter melt and keep it aside. Warm the milk

3/ break the eggs (whites and yolks) in a large bowl and add the sugar. Whisk until it becomes clearer, then add the milk, the baking powder, stir and add the liquid (but not hot) butter and then the flour and the cocoa powder and stir again to blend the dough

4/ pour the dough in a non sticking round mould (with vertical hedges) and put it into the heated oven at the middle of it during 12 minutes. Check that it is cooked, using a needle that should stay dry

5/ let the cake cool down at room temperature

The chocolate cream (“ganache”):

6/ when the dough is cold, cut the chocolate in small pieces into a salad bowl. Heat the cream to the boiling point and pour it on the chocolate while stirring until the cream is uniform. Let it cool down to less than 122°F, add the butter cut in small pieces and stir again until the cream is uniform

7/ pour the chocolate cream (“ganache”) onto the cake and spread it evenly and then keep the mould into the fridge for 1 hour (if the ganache is not hard, put it for 5 minutes into the freezer)

The confectioner’s custard:

8/ during the time when the cake is cooling down in the fridge, strain the morello cherries and keep 1.7 fl oz of the brandy you mix with the cherry spirit

9/ immerge the jelly sheets into cold water so that they become soft. Heat the milk with the vanilla bean opened to free the seeds until it boils

10/ in a large bowl, pour the egg yolks and the caster sugar and whisk until it becomes lighter (color), then add the starch, blend and pour the boiling milk (without the vanilla bean) little by little, whisk again quickly

11/ pour back in a pan, put it on the heat and make it cook gently (2 minutes after boiling, keeping stirring, then add the softened jelly leaves (well drained out from the water) and stir again

12/ add the brandy and cherry spirit and speed up the cooling of the custard by laying it on a board (spray some icing sugar on the custard to prevent hardening on top)

Whipped cream:

13/ when the custard is still warm, pour the liquid cream into a large bowl, chilled the whole into the freezer during 5 minutes then transform it into a whipped “Chantilly” cream

14/ pour the custard in a large bowl, add the whipped steady cream and blend very carefully as if you were making a soufflé

15/put the cherries onto the ganache (pull them a little bit inside the ganache with a finger), then cover the ganache and the cherries with the cream you just prepared, even the surface with a spatula and keep the cake in the freeze for at least 12 hours (so that you can easily remove it from the mould

The final Topping :

16/ the morning of the day when you will eat the cake, remove it (still frozen) from the mould and keep it on the plate the whole day (assuming you will eat it for the dinner) in the fridge

17/ gently heat the chocolate for the topping in a pan to make it become liquid but not hot, pour it on a plate or better on a cool marble, let it harden by cooling down and using a trowel, make a few chocolate shavings you will top the cake with and spray it with icing sugar