Life of Wry

It was Dror’s 70th birthday. He’s the third or fourth cousin in our Frame cohort to turn 70. Well, now that I’ve said that, let’s really count: Teresa was the first, then Chad, then Jim, then Marie, then Marty.. and now Dror (he’s the sixth, as it turns out). Then it will be me, then Alan.. and so it will go (Monica, Mark, John, Maita, probably in that order). (Someone correct me if I’m wrong on that.)

Back to the topic of this blog post: Dror’s birthday. And more specifically, the baking of his requested birthday cake.

First thing I learned: Dror’s favorite cake is Black Forest.

Never made one of those. Wasn’t even sure what it was.

Researched some recipes, found one from a site called Liv for Cake. Seemed definitive, got great reviews. She said it was an easy cake. I’m not sure I would say that. Each part is easy, but there are a lot of parts and it took all afternoon to make the thing.

So.. you make the cake (that is easy). You divide the batter between two 8″ or 9″ cake pans. It has to cool completely before going to the assembly phase, so that takes some time. While that’s happening, you make some cherry syrup (sugar, water, and Maraschino liqueur, or Kirsch). That was easy. Then you make what will become thin dark chocolate bark. That was easy, too, but required watching a video for its clever technique. Then you make some whipped cream. Also easy, but yet another step.

Okay.. so here’s the cake, it was really good cake in its bare state:

I asked Jim to do the honors of cutting each cake into two layers, for a total of four. Look at that concentration.

You put a layer on a cake plate, generously spread cherry liqueur syrup over it, add a layer of whipped cream..

… and then add cherries. Cherries are not in season so I used frozen and sorta splayed them across the layer. One could (maybe should) use Maraschino cherries. But I just couldn’t. These were a blend of sweet and sour cherries, so I added a bunch of sugar to them to sweeten them up.

Then you repeat this for each layer. You end up with a four-layer cake. I usually top out at two-layer cakes.. so this was kind of new.

You then frost the entire outside of the cake with the whipped cream:

One can then decorate it in all kinds of ways. Most folks do puffs of whipped cream on top with a cherry on top of each puff. Some sprinkle with shaved chocolate (that’s what we did). Some do both.

For extra excitement, Liv for Cake suggested surrounding the cake with chocolate bark. That seemed fun.. so I learned how to make bark. You heat some good dark chocolate in the microwave, stirring in 20 second increments until just melted. Then spread in a thin layer on a sheet of parchment paper. Then roll the parchment into a roll about 1.5-2″ in diameter. After it has chilled in the refrigerator for about 30-60 mins, it is ready to be unfurled, and as you do that, shards fall off in curved lengths. I made two of these, and I gotta say: fantastic!

This is what we did with them:

The chocolate shavings on top came from grating a bar of dark chocolate w/ the cheese grater. Also pretty cool; hadn’t done that before either.

Here is Dror blowing out the candles… which resulted in a hurricane of shaved chocolate flying around the kitchen, surprising everyone. I learned that maybe you forgo the blowing out of birthday candles when you have shaved chocolate on top of your cake.

This is just pre-shaved-chocolate-hurricane. I was too shocked to snap a pic just seconds later.

Last thing I learned: I’m not really a fan of Black Forest cake. Mostly I don’t like my cakes soggy (the cherry syrup layer gets absorbed and makes things heavy and wet). I also am not really a fan of whipped cream as a cake frosting. I am not a wet cherry fan, either. The whole thing tasted okay.. but it was heavy, rich, wetter than I like and a lot of work. You can keep tiramisu, as well. Not my thing.

I did like that thin dark chocolate bark, though. We had a bunch left over and they are very fun to eat.