North of the Wall: German Black Forest Cake

A view over the hills of the eastern edge of Germany's Black Forest facing France

What's been keeping House Cook from having much chance to cook these days? Distance and many, many changes.

This has been a season of change for us all. Anna-Lara has found a job and has been getting used to a new rhythm of life, Katy-Lynn is preparing for college, Julianne is jumping into her exciting new world of high school, and the youngest of us has been working as her soon-to-be rockstar self, practicing piano and winning science fairs. Meanwhile, I, Sarah-Lambert, have moved to Germany.

Today is the first in our new series, "North of the Wall," featuring foods and drinks and adventures from Germany where winter is most definitely coming.

Feast your eyes on some delicious, traditional Black Forest cake:

Yeah... tasty looking, right? It certainly is.

When I first started looking for the recipe, I could find only German ones. Not too much of a problem since translating a recipe isn't the most difficult, but thankfully, I found one written up in English that is only a tiny bit different from the one in German (you can find the English one I used as reference here). The recipe we're sharing with you today from North of the Wall is a mix of these two recipes.

German Black Forest Cake

Moderate difficulty. Prep time 40-60 minutes (I took 60, but you're probably faster). Cook time 40 minutes.

Ingredients: 

Cake:

1 2/3 cups   flour
2/3   cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp   baking soda
1 tsp   salt
1/2 c   shortening
1 1/2   cups sugar
2   eggs
1 tsp   vanilla extract
1 cup   buttermilk
2/3 cup   kirsch (cherry schnapps)

Filling: 

1 stick of butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 tsp strong coffee or espresso brewed and cooled
1 (14 oz) can of dark sweet pitted cherries in heavy syrup

Whipped frosting:

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp kirsch
1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
grated semi-sweet chocolate for garnish
extra dark cherries for decoration


Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Step 2: Line the bottoms of two 8 inch round pans with parchment paper (or tin foil) circles.

Step 3: Sift together flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt and set mixture aside.

Step 4: Cream shortening and sugar until nice and fluffy. Then beat in eggs and vanilla.

Step 5: Slowly, add the flour mixture into the shortening mixture alternating with your buttermilk until they are thoroughly combined. **If the mixture seems too dry add a tiny bit more buttermilk**

Step 6: Pour the mixture into your pans and bake for 35-40 minutes.

Step 7: When the cake halves are both baked, allow them to cool thoroughly. Once cooled, poke holes all over them using a toothpick or fork and sprinkle the kirsch (cherry schnapps) over them generously. How much you use is up to how strongly you'd like the cake to taste of schnapps. Remember: the alcohol will not be baked off, so don't get crazy with it if you're making this sugar treat for your kids!

Step 8: Cream the butter until light and fluffy.

Step 9: Add the powdered sugar, pinch of salt, and coffee and mix thoroughly.

Step 10: Remove the cake halves from their pans. Place the first half on a plate and spread the mixture from steps 8 and 9 over the surface of the layer. Top this with the pitted cherries and their syrup. **I only ended up using 3/4 of the can. Use as little or as much of the cherry/syrup business as you think looks good**

Step 10: In a separate bowl, whip the cream to stiff peaks.

Step 11: Beat in the vanilla, cocoa and kirsch listed under "whipped frosting" in the ingredients.

Step 12: Frost top and sides of cake and decorate with a dusting of chocolate shavings and a lining of cherries. Want more chocolate? Get crazy with your shavings and apply them liberally!

Keep the cake refrigerated until serving.

Khalee-C-Cupcakes: Heart-Shaped Red Velvet Cake

Caramel Flavored Red Velvet Cupcakes with a Peppermint Garnish

As we watched Daenerys Targaryan muscle her way past the gag reflex and choke down a raw horse heart during the first season of Game of Thrones, we thought to ourselves, "OMG, cupcakes!!" Yes, you read that correctly: cupcakes. Not just any cupcakes, mind you, but red velvet cupcakes with delicious whipped cream frosting and peppermint pieces all in a sweet little heart shape--a nod to Daenerys' suffering. 

Unfortunately, one amongst our number isn't such a fan of red velvet cake and handles eating cupcakes made with it about like Daenarys handled the horse heart...

If you're still with us--which you should be, because these bad boys are tasty--then let's get to baking!

Ingredients:

 Red velvet cupcakes (recipe here) 

 6 ounces of caramel ice cream topping

14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

1 cup heavy whipping cream

 1 tsp vanilla extract

 1 tbsp confectioner's sugar

 red food coloring

 peppermint candies

Step 1: Start out by prepping your favorite red velvet cupcake recipe. Here’s a good one from drool factor, but if

you’re more comfortable making it from the box than from scratch, that’s fine too. 

Step 2: I’m using a Wilton heart-shaped cupcake pan. If you don’t have or want to buy a heart-shaped pan, you can either make regular round cupcakes, or there are a couple of simple tricks you can follow to get heart-shaped cupcakes.

•        One is the place a marble between the cupcake filter and the inside of the pan. This created the top of the heart.
•         The second option is to bake your cake batter in a large flat pan and either cut out the heart shapes or use a cookie cutter.

Step 3: Use whichever shaping method you’ve chosen above and bake your cupcakes.

Step 4: While the cupcakes are in the oven, it’s time to prep the caramel and sweetened-condensed milk.  Combine the milk and caramel in a saucepan and stir. The mixture should be warm and easy to pour. Don't let the mixture become too hot and burn the caramel and milk.

Step 5: When the cupcakes are done let them cool for five minutes. Then take a knife and cut slits in the top of the cupcakes. Make sure not to cut to the bottom.

Step 6: Slowly pour the caramel and milk mixture over the slits in the cupcakes. I like to use a big spoon for this, but make sure not to pour too quickly. You want the cake to absorb the mixture.

  

Step 7: Prep the whip topping.

•           Pour 1 cup of heavy whipping cream into a bowl. Mix until soft peaks form.
•           Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 1 tbsp of confectioner’s sugar, and a few drops of red food coloring
•          Beat until soft peaks form

Step 8: Put the whip topping on the cupcakes. To get a great look, put the topping into a piping bag and use a star-tip. I used a 1M star tip (which is quite large) to get a good icing look.

Step 9: Crush peppermints. This is easiest if you put the mints into a Ziploc bag and use a rolling pin to crush them. Once crushed, garnish the top of the cupcakes with the peppermints. Don’t like peppermint? Any chocolate or hard-candy will work and will add a great flavor.

Crushed peppermints sprinkled on the cupcakes

The sweet red velvet cupcakes with sprinkles of peppermint all around 

...take a bite and enjoy!