Defying Gravity

I added a new cake to my repertoire this weekend, a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, or Black Forest Cake for you English speakers, Pastel de Bosque Negro, for Spanish speakers. I'm not sure what it's called in Esperanto. Katie, a little help with the Chinese translation? Porter, Finnish? Wendy, what would that be called in Utah?

I did quite a bit of scouting for recipes, and ended up using one printed in the NYTimes, the source of which is the executive pastry chef at Jean Georges.

Several components to this cake. First, chocolate cake: I think traditionally a chocolate Génoise or sponge cake is used because they soak up the Kirsch syrup well and the texture goes well with the other components, ganache, soft fruit filling, whipped cream. This chocolate cake recipe is on the dry side - no butter, but not made with whipped egg whites either.

The chocolate cake is baked in three 8" rounds. Each is then soaked with a simple syrup spiked with Kirsch. A semisweet chocolate ganache is spread over the bottom two layers. Cherry preserves are spread on top of the ganache.

This recipe also includes whipped cream, stabilized by butter. It's spread on top of each layer. I piped some rosettes and put a cherry in the middle of them. I realized later that I forgot to grate chocolate on top.


I was worried about the whole thing toppling over. It was one of the tallest cakes I've ever made. So I sang Defying Gravity from Wicked for the rest of the weekend. I sing in the kitchen a lot, and I talk to myself and my kitchen utensils, which is just, yeah.