Category: Pastry

I’d be happy to tell you what I know, reader Max. It’s a cherry brandy. The name simply means “cherry” in German, and part of the reason it’s so apropos in a Black Forest cake is because it hails from that region. Morello cherries — the European Continent’s go-to sour cherry — originated in the Black Forest. As for who first started making alcoholic beverages out of Black Forest cherries, well that’s anybody’s guess. You can make wine out of just about any fruit and the practice of winemaking goes back literally thousands of years in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Reader Cindy has been musing, she tells me, and is wondering why Black Forest cake only emerged as a phenomenon in the mid-20th century. If people in the Black Forest area had been eating sour cherries, cream and kirsch together for a hundred years or more by then, shouldn’t somebody somewhere have come up with a pastry?

My guess, Cindy, is that the rise of Black Forest cake was directly related to the advancement of refrigeration technology. Sweet cream, of the kind you need to make whipped cream, would have been a fairly rare commodity prior to about 1930.

Reader Dottie wants to know why I’m bothering to make Black Forest cake with génoise when American layer cake makes a perfectly good — and easier — substitute. Dottie, good question, for indeed there are a lot of New World bakers out there who don’t much care for sponge cake. Many of us find it difficult to prepare and maybe just a little anachronistic.

I get that. We New World bakers like our cakes thick and moist. Cake layers on the Continent are a bit tough by our standards and are seldom more than an inch or so high. An inch of course is nothing for an American cake layer. Heck, two inches is common. Three inches? Why not? I’ve got nothing to do today.

So asks reader Jey and it’s an excellent question. The answer is you need a minimum of 30% butterfat to make a stable whipped cream. In the States whipping cream (also called heavy cream) must be 36% butterfat. Some have more though I’m not sure if ingredient labels reveal that or not. I’ll have to check. Aussies and Brits have what’s known as double cream, which is at least 48% butterfat. It makes exceptionally thick

Not very much, reader Brian. I drove through it once on the way to visit the city of Freiburg. I remember the Black Forest being quite black indeed because of all the pine and fir trees, but that’s about it for the forest itself. One thing I remember about Freiburg, however, was all the cuckoo clocks. The Black Forest area is known for cuckoo clocks, which have been produced there, in one form or another, for some 300 years. There was a shop in Freiburg that seemed to have nothing in it but cuckoo clocks. The sheer absurdity of it made you want to buy one.

Reader Sandra wants to know why cream needs to be cold before you whip it. Excellent question and one I’m only too pleased to answer. Heavy cream is pretty amazing stuff: a liquid that can be turned (sort of) into a solid by agitating it. The geek in me, which is really most of me, says: neato.

Reader Carly wants to know why génoise batter calls for gently warmed eggs. Is it a food safety thing? Actually no, Carly, the reason we warm the eggs before whipping is to ensure that they whip up as high as they reasonably can. Cold egg albumen (white) is thicker than warm egg albumen. As such […]