Black Forest Cake Balls

A few months ago a friend was lamenting the lack of authentic Black Forest Cake options at our local pastry haunts.  Being in a heavily Italian pastry kind of place, it's not all that surprising.  So I promised to provide her with an as-close-to-authentic-as-this-little-Italian-could-make-it Black Forest Cake.

The perfect opportunity for making my friend the long promised cake finally arose but, it wasn't really the best situation for a three-layer cake.  I had to improvise, deciding to modify the recipe I had planned to use and make cake balls instead.

Cake balls are one of those things that I enjoy eating but, I never had much interest in making myself.  As far as I was concerned, they are one step too far over the line for me.  Making a multi-layered cake is just easier.  You don't have to frustrate yourself trying to keep the chocolate melted while you dip an endless number of balls.  I enjoy a challenge, but a girl has to draw the line somewhere. 

In the end I relented - my friend is worth the frustration and I did make a promise. So I provided a quite tasty, but less than authentic dessert for a pot luck dinner.

Black Forest Cake Balls

Ingredients:

Cake

1 2⁄3 c. all-purpose flour
2⁄3 c. cocoa powder
1 1⁄2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1⁄2 c. shortening
1 1⁄2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1⁄2 c. buttermilk

Filling

1/2 c. Kirschwasser

1 c. frozen cherries - pitted

Icing

2 c. heavy whipping cream
1⁄2 tsp. vanilla
1⁄8 c. Kirschwasser
2 Tbsp dry milk
2 Tbsp icing sugar

Dark chocolate melting wafer

Directions:

In a mason jar, combine the frozen cherries and 1/2 cup of Kirschwasser.  Place in the fridge overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350F and line the bottom of three 9 inch round cake pans with parchment paper.

Sift the dry cake ingredients together.

Cream the shortening and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk and mix well.

Pour evenly into the cake pans. Bake for 30 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.

Remove the cakes and set aside to cool completely. 

Whip the cream until it forms stiff peaks then gently fold in the dry milk and icing sugar.

Add the vanilla and pour in the Kirsch until it's a good consistency.

Now comes the messy bit.  Take 1 of the cakes and remove it from the tin.  Place it in a bowl and combine with a about 1/2 of icing.  Mix well and repeat with each layer of cake. Add as much icing as you feel is necessary and you get a good truffle-like consistency.

Not going to lie, I had a hard time not sitting down in the from the television and eating all of this myself.  If you are good, you will continue on with the instructions.

Take out the mason jar with the cherries and drain the excess liquid.  Cut the cherries in half (optional).

Take a good sized spoonful and create a cup to hold one of the cherries (or cherry halves).

Cover with more cake.

Repeat until you have no more cake left.  

Melt the chocolate wafers and dip each ball.

Repeat until finished!

I ended up with just over 2 dozen cake balls.  The kirschwasser added just a hint of flavor, the taste of alcohol was not defining taste at all.  I'm not a fan of overly alcoholic rum balls, so I was purposely going for a hint versus whoa alcohol.  These were well worth the effort.  They are not too sweet, not too chocolaty (if there is such a thing), they are just right! 

My Experience at "A Taste of Germany"

 

I have always enjoyed trying new foods and thus far, have only drawn the line once.  I declared eating a pig's tail a hard limit when I was living in Moldova.  Aside from that, I will try any food once and even if I don't like it, I will try it a second time just to make sure.

German food falls squarely into the "always willing to eat" category.  Therefore, when I was invited to tag along on a trip to the Hartford Saengerbund, a German American club, I gave a resounding "mmmmm, German food and beer". Now, a trip to the German club is not quite a foodie tour through Nuremberg, but it is a nice way to experience some good food and a different culture while getting to stay close to home.

According to their website, the Hartford Saengerbund was founded in 1858.  Originally located in Hartford, it moved to Newington, CT in 1966.  Over the last several decades it has been host to several public events each year, allowing the local community and other more farther away guests (i.e., me) to join in on the fun.  This year's A Taste of Germany came complete with a sampling of food, music, beer, and more food.

My food of choice for the day was a pretzel, rouladen, potato salad (obviously of the German variety), and a potato pancake with applesauce.  The rouladen is a slice of beef wrapped around bacon and sliced gherkin pickles then covered in gravy.  Seriously, how do you say no to bacon wrapped beef and a pickle?!  The pretzels were being sold by club members dressed up in traditional costumes, adding to the fun atmosphere.

Yes, the pretzel is half eaten... I was hungry.

The event, as a whole, seemed really well attended.  There was traditional German music being played during the event, keeping all of our feet tapping.  The club has already announced the dates for their annual Christmas festival, so if you are curious where I will be on November 28th...check under the beer taps at Christkindlemarkt.