You can leave this out if you’d like to keep it kid-friendly or use a non-alcoholic cherry syrup. In order to keep it traditional, I also made a cherry syrup (using kirsch – cherry liqueur) to brush onto the cake layers. So, super easy chocolate cake, a simple whipped cream for frosting, and fresh cherries. The trickiest part of this cake is making sure you don’t have any lingering cherry pits in your cherries, which totally happened due to a less-than-stellar cherry pitter that broke after about 10 cherries. It looks fancier than it is, and the chocolate bark was actually dead easy to make. I promise you, this is one of the easiest cakes you will make.

So, I set off to re-create the decades-old Black Forest Cake my way. They are one of my favourite summer seasonal fruits. I have caved and used them as a garnish because I will admit, they look pretty and just go with certain desserts, but they get plucked right off before eating the cake. I’ve talked about my disdain for maraschino cherries before, and that feeling still holds true to this day.

Now that I think about it, it’s probably been a good 20-25 years since I’ve had that cake. Why on earth would you ruin a perfectly delicious cake with those sickly sweet, sticky, artificial tasting cherries? Whyyyyy? Needless to say, I ate around them, but they totally tainted the cake and frosting. You know, the grocery store kind with the nuclear red maraschino cherries? My mom loooooved that cake and always got it for her birthday, and often at other times throughout the year as well.

This Black Forest Cake combines rich chocolate cake layers with fresh cherries, cherry liqueur, and a simple whipped cream frosting.īlack Forest Cake was a staple when I was growing up (much to my dismay…read on).

British bake off black forest gateau