Black Forest Gateau - GBBO 80s Week

It was the time of Kylie and Jason and Bros, drop-waist dresses with puff ball sleeves, Butlins holidays, Queen and Vanilla Ice, My Little Pony and Care Bears, candy necklaces and fizzy cola bottles, and what felt like endless summers running around outside with friends from your estate, running home just in time to watch 80 Days Around the World with Willy Fog or to beg mum for a coin p as you heard the ice cream van music playing.

In other words, I was a child of the 80s and so was really looking forward to Great British Bake Off’s 80s themed week. I wondered beforehand what they could be asked to make - these are the foods I most remember!

• Viennetta
• Vol au vents
• Chicken kiev
• Battenburg
• Frozen pizza (deep pan, served with chips)
• Black Forest Gateau
• Melon slices with cherries on cocktail sticks
• Speaking of which, cheese and pineapple cubes on cocktail sticks
• Angel delight
• Space invaders crisps
• Panda pops

The list goes on.... if you remember the 80s, what were your favourites?

The actual challenges in GBBO were quiche, custard doughnuts and ice cream cake. I didn’t realise quiche was an 80s trend, though I do remember seeing one for the first time in the local bakery when I was a child and reading the label, getting the pronunciation wrong as I’d never seen the word before and asking my mum what a ‘quickie’ was, to her mortification! Though as someone with a modern languages degree I’m quite impressed that eight or nine-year old me read ‘quiche’ as ‘quickie’!

I didn’t think those kind of doughnuts were particularly associated with the 80s either, and other than Viennetta I don’t think I ever saw an ice cream cake in the 80s - and Viennetta isn’t really cake, it’s ice cream and thin layers of chocolate.

So when it came to my own bakealong I decided to make something different. I have strong memories of going to a couple of aunts’ weddings in the 80s and Black Forest gateau featuring prominently on the buffet table. I absolutely loved Black Forest gateau apart from one thing - I didn’t like cherries. But the cake was so moist, so chocolatey, I couldn’t resist - so I would always have a slice if it was on offer and carefully prise apart the layers and scrape the cherry filling out, then scrape the cherry off the top, then deposit both on my mum’s plate and wipe my fork with her napkin!

I still don’t like cherries and haven’t eaten Black Forest gateau for years - and have never made one, so it seemed a good idea to make for my GBBO bake along!

I used this Eric Lanlard recipe but didn’t use kirsch as I wanted my daughter to be able to eat the cake; instead I brushed the cake layers with cherry juice. I also didn’t want to use black cherries so bought a tin of black cherry pie filling, which did contain whole cherries but also a thick syrup that I used to sandwich between the layers of the cake. I saved the actual cherries to decorate the top of the cake - and of course picked them off when I came to eat it!

I think I might have forgotten to add the sugar to the cream and I didn’t think I could actually taste any cherry in the cake either from the juice or the filling! Which essentially made it quite a lot of faff for a chocolate cake with a fresh cream filling. But the grated chocolate around the outside and the cherries on top made it feel very 1980s! So I was fairly happy with this cake but if I made it again I might just use the cake recipe and skip the cherries entirely and fill it with chocolate instead!

 

 

French Forest Gateau

 This is my twist on Black Forest Gateau - it's a dessert rather than a cake and uses French glace cherries.

I was invited to take part in a competition to create a new recipe using French glace cherries, which can be used for far more than just decoration, as they hold their texture, flavour and shape throughout the baking process.

Black forest gateau was the first thing that came to mind when I thought about cherries. The cake was very popular in my 80s childhood (I think Sara Lee had something to do with that) and I remember eating it at an aunt's wedding. The cake is lovely and light, with a bit of a kick from the kirsch, and uses black cherries or morello cherries in the filling and to decorate.

This time of year is a bit hot for cake so I decided to change the recipe to a cool dessert, and to incorporate French glace cherries instead; the candied cherries have a lovely sweetness that means you don't need to add any sugar.

My dessert is a kind of deconstructed cake, in that it has a layer of airy  fourless chocolate cake, a layer of cherries, a layer of cream, then repeat - a layer of cake, cherries and cream. All topped off with some more French glace cherries and chocolate cravings.

I made this dessert to serve two, but you can easily double the quantities.

French Forest Gateau- An Original Recipe by Caroline Makes

For the cake:
3 eggs, separated
75g soft brown sugar
30g cocoa powder

For the cherry layer:
200g French glace cherries
2 tbsp kirsch
200ml water

For the topping:
250ml double cream
French glace cherries to decorate
Chocolate shavings or sprinkles to decorate

Preheat oven to 175C and grease and line the bottom of a loose-bottomed cake tin. I used a 9-inch square tin then cut out circles of the cake to fit the serving glasses I was using. Whisk the egg whites until stiff. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and the cocoa powder, then fold in the egg whites. Spoon into the tin, smooth the top and bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool, first in the tin then on a cooling rack.

To make the cherry layer, place the French glace cherries in a small heavy-based saucepan along with the water; bring to the boil and simmer until the cherries have softened. Add the kirsch and stir until you have a thick jam-like consistency. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

When you are ready to assemble the dessert, whisk the double cream until thick.

Choose a pretty serving bowl, or individual dishes or glasses. I cut out a circle of the cake to fit the size of my serving glass. Place a layer of cake on the bottom of the dish, then a layer of the French glace cherry mixture, then a layer of double cream. Repeat, finishing with cream; top with a few French glace cherries and a sprinkling of chocolate shavings.