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!

 

 

Cherry and Almond Cakes

Recently I met up with a very artistic, talented lady who was passing on to me a piece of craft equipment and didn’t want any money for it (I didn’t realise at the time how expensive it was, or I might have insisted!) so I wanted to at least bake her something as a thank you.

It had to be something that would transport easily in a box as I was going to see her straight after work and knew I wouldn’t be able to carry a big cake box (as I would also have the craft equipment to take home) so decided to make some simple muffins or unfrosted cupcakes that wouldn’t get damaged in transit. I also wasn’t sure how she would be feeling about cake as she had been ill recently, and I didn’t want to make anything too sickly-sweet. I had some glace cherries in the cupboard and wondered about a recipe for a simple cherry cake, and came across this recipe for cherry and almond cake on the Macmillan website.

 

 

The recipe is for one large cake but I used a pretty silicon muffin mould instead. There seems to be a typo in the recipe though as it says 1 5 g/4oz of flour and the same of almonds; clearly it wasn’t 15g so I checked and found that 4oz is the same as 113g so that’s how much I used. So to clarify, my ingredients were:

 

170g margarine

170g caster sugar

3 eggs

115g self-raising flour

115g ground almonds

85g glace cherries, halved

 

Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the margarine and sugar together and then beat in the eggs.

 

 

Fold in the flour and then the almonds and cherries.

 

 

 

Spoon into the muffin moulds – as mine was silicon I didn’t use cake cases but sprayed the mould with Cake Release. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

  

 

 

I think these are technically cupcakes but look more like muffins as they don’t have any frosting, so I’m not quite sure what to call them!

 

 

 

These were really quick to make; I did taste one when it came out of the oven and it was light and fluffy – and particularly good served hot, you might want to try these with custard!

 

I'm entering these in Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen this month is C.

 

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.

Cookery Workshop with French Glace Cherries

French glace cherries were quite common in my childhood, always as the topping on a dessert - be it a knickerbocker glory or on top of a white iced fairy cake (we didn't call them cupcakes in those days!). I didn't like them and would always pick them off! So I was intrigued when I was invited to a cookery workshop aimed around one ingredient, and one ingredient alone: French glace cherries! The invitation promised to show us different recipes using cherries and I knew I had to go.

The class was hosted at the Central Street Cookery School in London, which I didn't even know existed - I can't believe I had missed such a gem! It's part of St Luke's Community Centre and the kitchen - which has a huge table and lots of ovens and sinks, so is perfect for teaching - can be hired for private events and cookery classes. The best thing is that the money they make from doing this goes back to St Luke's to help them provide food-related community projects.

The afternoon session that I attended was sponsored by French Glace Cherries and we were well looked after by the company's PR, Pauline at Sopexa. The company had teamed up with Cindy, a French chef who runs a baking business, Petit Gateau. Her blog also has information about her business and tons of great recipes.

Cindy and Pauline

 Cindy and Pauline welcomed us and told us a little about French glace cherries - originally they were candied not to satisfy a sweet tooth but as a way of preserving the cherries, and this process dates back to about 1600! I also discovered that glace cherries can be different colours - some batches darker than others - and this is a deliberate process, based on the juice that is used to stain them.

These ones come from Provence, where the growing conditions are just right for cherries, and I learned why it is important to use good quality cherries - not all cherries retain their flavour, shape and texture throughout the baking process (but these will), and cheaper glace cherries allow a lot of the sugar to seep out so you end up with a sticky residue at the bottom.

Cindy had already made a variety of treats for us to try,  which were quite simply amazing. In the pictures below you can see French glace cherries wrapped in bacon, which are then baked in the oven; mini oatcakes that contain chopped French glace cherries, topped with a French glace cherry chutney and blue cheese, and some mini French glace cherry smoothies, complete with a red and white striped straw. So cute!

 And in the pictures below, you can see some mini cheesecakes with a layer of French glace cherry compote, and chocolate fondants topped with a French glace cherry - I couldn't decide which of these two were my favourite! 

Cindy had devised some different recipes for us to cook on the day - Frencg glace cherry 'jaffa cakes' and French glace cherry financiers. We began by making the jaffa cakes as they needed to set in the fridge. First we made a genoise sponge for the base, which involved whisking eggs and sugar in a bain marie.Here you can see where I have finely chopped some French glace cherries for the filling.

Cindy had already made us a jam from French glace cherries, as we wouldn't have had time to do this in the class; we mixed this with gelatine and added the chopped cherries and put it in the fridge to set.

We cooked the genoise sponge in a silicon cupcake tray so we would have small flat discs for the base of the jaffa cake.

When the jelly came out of the fridge, we used a small round cutter to cut out circles.

It's much easier to make these if you keep the cakes in the silicon mould!

We placed a circle of jelly on each cake then melted some chocolate, and after waiting for it to cool a little (so it wouldn't melt the jelly), we poured it over the top.

Finally we decorated them with some candy and sugar paper hearts - it was nearly Valentine's day after all!

The finished French glace cherry 'jaffa cakes'. They tasted fantastic and the cherry was an interesting alternative to orange that I think worked really well.

Next we made financiers, a traditional French cake using ground almonds. Here's Cindy demonstrating; the full recipe is on her website here.

We heated butter so it was slightly burnt and golden brown; it takes on a nutty flavour so is called a 'beurre noisette'. Then you mix flour, ground almonds and sugar and add the butter. Then add egg whites - so this is a good recipe if you are using egg yolks for something else and have the whites left over!

We added chopped French glace cherries to the batter once it had gone into the pan. We used a cute heart-shaped silicon mould for this but you could use any shape pan or muffin tin even.

After just a short time in the oven, they were ready:

Very pretty! And again another recipe I wouldn't have thought to use French glace cherries in.

Thanks to French Glace Cherries, Pauline at Sopexa and Cindy at Petit Gateau for organising and hosting the event and for inviting me - and for my fabulous goody bag! It was great to meet some other bloggers and to learn some new recipes.

Slimming World black forest roulade

We had a food-tasting session at Slimming World recently, where everyone was encouraged to make or bring a sweet snack or dessert. I couldn't resist the chance to bake, especially as it meant I wouldn't necessarily have to eat any of it - so I decided to use the opportunity to use an ingredient I don't actually like!

The new Slimming World recipe book "Love desserts, love Slimming World" had a recipe for black forest roulade, and since I don't like cherries I knew I was unlikely to make it otherwise. I was a little nervous as the only other time I've made a swiss roll, it completely broke when I tried to roll it up, but I was prepared to have a second shot!

The quantities given in the recipe said it would serve 8, and I halved them (only because I realised at the last minute I didn't have enough eggs!) and decided that the resulting dish would either serve 4 with quite large portions, or still serve 8 if you only wanted a thin slice. It also gave 4 syns per slice but since I've halved the quantities, if you did have a thin slice and still got eight out of it, then it's 2 syns apiece.

So feel free to double these quantities, but this is what I did:

3 eggs, separated
50g caster sugar
4 tbsp sweetener
25g cocoa powder
50g fat free plain yogurt or natural fromage frais
100g quark
half a can of black cherries in natural juice, drained
cocoa powder to dust - though I used icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C/ fan 160C/ gas 4. Line a swiss roll tin with baking paper.

Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and half the sweetener. Sift in the cocoa and fold together.

Whisk the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff, and fold into the egg yolk mixture.

Spoon into the tin and bake for about 15 mins until it feels slightly springy

Leave to cool in the tin. Then turn out upside down onto a piece of greaseproof paper.

Mix the fromage frais, quark and remaining sweetener and spread over the sponge. Scatter with cherries.

Carefully roll up, using the piece of baking paper it is on to help. It actually rolled quite easily and didn't break at all!

Finally sprinkle with cocoa powder - or icing sugar as I did, and serve.

Black forest roulade is a spin-off from Black forest gateau, which of course is a German recipe, so I'm sending this into Calendar Cakes for the German team to enjoy. The theme for this month's Calendar Cakes, hosted by Laura from Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel from Dolly Bakes.