Forêt Noire
cherry compote
700g of fresh cherries (the best you can find)
1 pinch of salt
2 Tbsp of potato starch
crème
400g of cream
150g of crème fraîche
1 vanilla pod
30g of confectioner’s sugar
cake base
190g of flour
75g of potato starch
300g of sugar
2 Tbsp of baking powder
190g of butter
1 Tbsp of salt
280ml of milk
110g of cocoa
3 eggs
To do the chocolate bases, put milk and cocoa in a pot and heat at lowest heat. Stir well with a whisk until all the cocoa lumps have dissolved. Put aside.
Put flour, starch, sugar, baking powder and salt into a big bowl. Cut up the butter into small lumps and add to the mixture. Knead the dough with the dough hook of the electric mixer at medium level for about three minutes until the butter lumps have practically vanished. Add the eggs and the milk-cocoa mass and continue to stir at medium level until everything is evenly blended and you obtain homogenous dough. Do not knead too long; otherwise the bases will get hard.
Bake in the pre-heated oven in a greased pan (diameter of 20cm) at 170°C for 30 – 40 minutes. Before taking it out prick with a toothpick or a knife: if no dough is sticking, the cake is finished. 5 minutes after having removed it from the oven, place a plate on the pan – this way the moisture stays in the cake.
Wash, stone and halve the cherries. Boil in a pot at medium heat for about 10 minutes. Take three tablespoons of the cherry juice, mix with the starch and put back into the pot. Boil for another minute. Allow to cool well.
Beat the whipped cream. Scrape out the vanilla pod and carefully add its pith, crème fraîche and sugar into the stiff whipped cream. Put into the fridge.
Cut the cake into three even bases. Put half of the stewed cherries onto the lowest base, top with the middle base and cover with the rest of the stewed cherries and top with the last base. Coat with the cream and garnish with cherries.