… and these Thy gifts …

A repost from my old baking blog…

The finished product. Sorry for the grease spots on the lens. We were in a hurry to get to the party!

Black Forest Cake / Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte

Elements here, bottom to top:

• the turntable/cake stand
• The baking circles or rounds, and the doily
• the cake layers
• the ganache
• the cherry filling
• the chocolate curls
• and — uh,oh — I guess I forgot the whipped cream portion.

  Here you go: an excellent tutorial from egullet.org. Except I don’t use gelatin sheets in mine. Just straight up whip the cream, add sugar (confectioners and regular both work for me fine, maybe I’m not that discerning a baker, eh?), any flavoring I want, like a bit of extract or liqueur. I guess mine is (more accurately) what’s called Chantilly Cream.

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A repost from my old baking blog.

1 14.5 oz. can tart cherries (not cherry pie filling)
water if necessary
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

Drain cherries, reserving liquid. Set cherries aside. Measure liquid — you need 1/2 cup; add water if necessary. Add sugar and cornstarch to liquid and whisk until dissolved. Transfer to a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, or until thickened. Remove from heat and fold in cherries. Refrigerate until needed, up to 24 hours.

This cherry filling can be used for cakes or pies. I prefer this method to buying ready-made pie filling because I’m trying to avoid food coloring and other artificial ingredients. If canned cherries are unavailable you can use dried cherries instead. Rehydrate them, then make this filling. The texture will be a different, but the flavor will be excellent nonetheless.

You can also use canned sweet bing cherries instead of the tart Montmorency or Morello, but certain preparations call for the sour cherry, e.g., traditional Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte or Black Forest Cake, coming soon.

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A repost from my old baking blog.

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
4 ounces sweet chocolate
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 to 3 tablespoons rum, brandy or other spirits
2 teaspoons vanilla extract, optional
Confectioners sugar to taste

Chop or break off chocolates into small chunks. In a microwave-safe bowl or large measuring cup, combine with the whipping cream. Microwave in 15-30 second increments, stirring well after each, until you have a smooth brown mixture. Stir in spirits and/or vanilla. If you need to use it right away, stir briskly in bowl set over ice, until it reaches the consistency you want. Otherwise, keep in refrigerator, covered, up to a week, until needed. Sprinkle or sieve in confectioners sugar and stir well.

Use this as a filling for cakes or for frosting.

To use for making truffles, simply add more chocolate, or use less cream. Chill and form into balls, then coat with cocoa powder, nuts, sprinkles, etc. or coat with a chocolate glaze and decorate with royal icing, etc.

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A repost from my old baking blog.

I have several go-to recipes when I need a chocolate cake from scratch. This is my favorite — it’s so easy!

Cooking spray for pans
Cake flour or cocoa powder for dusting
4 ounces (120 g) unsweetened chocolate

1/2 pound (230 g) unsalted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups (280 g) cake flour
2 cups (400 g) sugar (you can use a little less, about 1 1/2 cups, if you want a less sweet cake)
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (I usually use whole, but have tried 2% and 1% and the cake still came out good)
4 eggs

Equipment: Parchment rounds, 8- or 9-inch round cake pans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray pans with cooking spray and flour (or use cocoa powder, which I like for chocolate cakes) cake pans. Melt chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl or measuring cup, in 15-30 second intervals, until smooth. (Alternatively, do this in a double boiler or in a heavy-bottomed pan over low heat — watch carefully to make sure chocolate doesn’t burn.) In a bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Add chocolate mixture, milk and eggs and beat until smooth. Pour, distributing evenly, into prepared pans, and bake for 25-30 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean and cake starts to pull from the sides of the pan. Cool in pans on racks for 5 minutes before turning out onto racks. The cakes are ready to be frosted at this point, or cool completely and wrap in plastic wrap then foil if freezing for future use. The cakes can also be wrapped and refrigerated for a few days before using.

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A repost from my old baking blog.

What do you put that cake on when you’re ready to decorate?

Two basic things a baker should have in his or her shelves (or cupboards, or baker’s rack, or whatever it is you use to store your baking supplies):

cake circles, or the tougher cake boards, and doilies.

, for 8″ cakes

More choices at TuffBoard, Pastry Items, a huge selection at Golda’s Kitchen, but I think nothing beats Sugarcraft when it comes to choices!! I count it one of our many blessings that we live just 10 minutes from them!

As for doilies, there’s a bunch at Amazon, or you can order from The Baker’s Kitchen, Country Kitchen Sweet Art, Candyland Crafts, glassine ones from My Paper Shop, but then again Sugarcraft takes the cake (no pun intended) for having the most supplies in one spot. I’m hoping Delores (the owner) will see this post and give me a commission, hee hee….

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from my old baking blog:

Not a perfect recipe yet, still working on it, but getting close and the kids scarfed it up, especially drizzled with some non-dairy chocolate syrup.

cooking spray, oil or shortening for greasing pan
alternative flour for flouring pan (I used rice flour)
1 cup superfine sugar (or regular sugar, whirled in a blender)
115 grams Spectrum Organics Shortening (no trans-fats, yay!)
2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Wheat-Free Biscuit and Baking Mix
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup rice milk
1 tablespoon cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)

Prepare 9 in x 2 in cake pan — grease, then cover bottom with cut-to-fit parchment, then grease again, then flour. Tap off excess flour and keep pan in refrigerator until ready to use. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream sugar and shortening in mixer bowl, about 30 seconds. Add flour, applesauce, vanilla extract, rice milk, and cocoa powder. Continue beating until combined well, about 3 minutes. Bake for about 40-45 minutes in the middle of the oven. Test cake for doneness using a skewer or cake tester — it should come out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack 10 minutes. Take knife and carefully slide it around pan to loosen cake. Turn over gently to release cake then turn over again onto plate and set aside to cool.

Changes I’m thinking of making:

try different kinds / a combination of different flours
try it “marbled” — half of the batter mixed with melted non-dairy dark chocolate, then swirled together in the pan before baking.
we haven’t tried it frosted, so that’s also on the list.

The cake should be moister and denser than a regular cake, but that’s okay, my kids thought it was good, so yours might like it too. It should not be “wet” though. I made this twice in November, but lost the pics when our desktop crashed.

Since then, I’ve made this cake 3 more times. I’ve learned to make my own cake mix so now instead of using Bob’s Red Mill, I’ve come up with the following formula:

1 cup rice flour
1 cup fava and garbanzo bean flour (I can make the garbanzo bean flour myself, but I haven’t found dried fava beans that I can grind)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

I would make a large batch of this and use it as needed.

In November of this year I also tried varying the spices to make my 9-yo’s birthday cake. Earlier in the month I had made a buttermilk spice layer cake for a friend, so I used the same spices for this and it came out very well. (I’ll blog about that later.)

We also used this for making cupcakes and they turned out well also. I haven’t solved the crust problem — but the inside is so regular-cake-like that an easy solution would be just to lop off the top 1/4 inch or so. I have NOT tried making it into a layered cake. That should be easy enough to do, though the cake may need to be chilled before slicing, frosted, THEN brought to room temp (or cool) before serving.

I’m planning to try it out again sometime in the next two weeks…. maybe layered, with raspberry filling, and a “ganache” of dark chocolate (dairy free) melted in soymilk, and a frosting made with Smart Balance and confectioner’s sugar. Or maybe a Vegenaise-dark chocolate combination. We’ll see.

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