It was our first practical week at the cake class at Grossmont College. Chef chose the classic Black Forest Gateau to start. I dont think there needs to be a recipe, its really just a chocolate cake with lots of whipped cream (2 cups!!) with kirsh, sour cherries and chocolate shavings.
This is the cake I made with my partner, she's a very accomplished decorator, so it was a breeze for her to get it looking perfect.
I thought I'd include the step by step process, apologies for a very long post!
First step was shaving the chocolate with a pallete knife to try and get curls. As usual, Chef makes it look a lot easier than it is! As we get more and more frustrated, the warmer the chocolate gets, the harder it is to make curls!!
We made a chiffon cake, where we separated the eggs and whipped up the whites for extra volume.
The cake was carefully cut into three. The key to this is keeping the knife flat and spinning the cake around instead of going straight through.
The cake layers were then placed on boards and brished with sweetened, kirsh and cherry juice.
Whipped cream was spread onto each layer, not too much!
Sour cherries are dotted around the cream
Another layer of cake
More cream!
Pop the top on!
Use a cake board to push everything down. Dont worry about the cream oozing out, we'll clean that up in a minute
Top with yet more cream!
Get the top really nice and smooth, that will be showing
Put cream around the sides. This isnt so important, since we'll be covering with chocolate
Put cream around the sides. This isnt so important, since we'll be covering with chocolate
A clean white cream covered cake, already for decoration. Once again, chef makes it look much easier than it is! Take the spatula and dip in warm water, then smooth for a clean finish
Carefully put the chocolate curls on the sides.
Score marks to show where the cake will be sliced
Pipe rosettes in each of the slices. This should be super easy since we all learned in Basic Baking (cough!!).
Put a cherry on each of the rosettes and bob's your uncle!
Cut a slice and get everyone salivating as its really dinner time for everyone.
