This modern black forest cake in naked cake style originates from the traditional black forest cake recipe but I tweaked in some additions which really enhance the taste and make it an unbelievably delicious cake. The original recipe is fairly easy and has three main components: chocolate sponge cakes, cherries and whipped cream.
In this recipe I am adding a crunchy cookie layer at the bottom of the cake, which is found in traditional German cakes as well, and a chocolate ganache to give it some more chocolate! Therefore, it makes it the best black forest cake recipe! You can view the ‘making of’ in my Instagram Highlights. For more popular cake recipes, check out these:
- You can find even more impressions and videos of the Black Forest Cake on my Instagram account!
- Get inspired by more simple and quick cake recipes under the category ‘Jessi’s favorites – quick and easy’
German Black Forest Cake Recipe
Living abroad I realized that baking in Germany is big! And the black forest cherry cake is one of the most iconic German cake recipes. In Germany we have two or more aisles for baking ingredients and equipment in the supermarket, in other countries, including the Netherlands, we unfortunately don’t have this much variety. No worries, the black forest cake ingredients are basic ingredients which can be found any where.
This cake is also often referred as German chocolate cake, as it consists of chocolate sponge cakes and is topped or covered with chocolate sprinkles. My modern black forest cake recipe version is making it even more chocolatey with the irresistible chocolate ganache! I’ll explain you here step by step how to make black forest cake at home.
How to make Black Forest Cake at home
This is a guide for the best modern black forest cake recipe:
- Cookie layer: in a lot of traditional German cake recipes you’ll find a cookie layer on the very bottom of the cake. It lays the foundation of the cake and adds some crunch to the cake, together with the soft sponge cakes it is perfect!
- Sponge cake: these are chocolate sponge cakes with dark raw cacao powder in it.
- Whipped cream: the original recipe only contains whipped cream as frosting, but I really like to fresh it up, that’s why I added some cream cheese in this recipe.
- Cherries: for this recipe we need a lot of cherries! Traditionally cooked with some cornstarch and sugar to make it stick together and become a sort of pudding
- Chocolate ganache: cannot be found in the black forest cake origin, but I think it adds so much flavor to the cake and makes it more chocolatey!
All these layers are simply stacked together and there we have the modern black forest cake in naked cake style!
Easy simple traditional Black Forest Cake
With this recipe from scratch I’ll show to make an easy black forest cake. This cake recipe adds two more components to the traditional recipe, but as it is a naked black forest cake, there is no need to wrap it in frosting and no decoration is needed. Once all five components are ready, we can stack those together. Importantly, the chocolate sponge cake is cut into three layers and each layer, and before stacking them, the chocolate ganache should be spread on those until the edges of the layers, so that we can see the chocolate ganache layer when we stack it.
It is a simple black forest cake recipe, as we only need to stack the different layers. First, the cookie layer, topped with a thin layer of chocolate ganache, the first sponge cake layer is put on top. Half of the cherry pudding is evenly spread on the sponge cake and then we top it off with half of the cream cheese frosting. This is repeated once again and the final touch gives the last sponge cake. The only decoration needed here are some fresh cherries. To stack the modern black forest cake I recommend to use a cake ring. Once stacked, cool it for a couple of hours and then remove the cake ring to serve.
