Black Forest Gateau Recipe: Your Gran’s Favourite Pud Is Back for Christmas

Black Forest gateau recipe cards used to live in every granny’s kitchen drawer. They were splattered with cream, dog-eared at the corners and guarded like the family silver.

And now? Gran’s favourite pud is back—big time.

Cast your mind back to Christmas in the 1980s. The tinsel was thick, the telly was on, and the Quality Street tin was already half empty by Boxing Day. Then out came the showstopper: a towering chocolate gateau, cherries glistening on top, chocolate curls tumbling down the sides. Nobody said no to a second slice. Nobody.

Back then, Black Forest gateau was the height of sophistication. It was the dessert you ordered at the Berni Inn for a birthday treat, after the prawn cocktail and the steak and chips. It was also the frozen gateau that sat in pride of place in the freezer, saved for when “company” came round.

Then, somewhere around the arrival of the sticky toffee pudding, poor old Black Forest fell out of favour. It was branded naff and banished to the back of the freezer aisle.

Well, not anymore. Retro food is having a serious moment this Christmas, and Black Forest is leading the charge. Sainsbury’s has a Black Forest cheesecake in its festive range, Black Forest yule logs are popping up on supermarket shelves, and M&S is reinventing the classic gateau as dainty individual puds. Clearly, the supermarkets have done their homework.

So we’ve gone back to the source. This is the proper German original, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte: light chocolate sponge soaked in kirsch, layered with sharp morello cherries and whipped cream, then smothered in dark chocolate shavings. It takes a little patience. Still, the payoff is a cake that will have the whole family reaching for seconds, just like Gran’s did.

Short on time? We’ve also got a cheat’s 1980s version further down. It uses shop-bought sponge and is ready in under 30 minutes. Gran would approve. Probably.

Traditional Black Forest gateau recipe

🔗 Shop Black Forest gateau ingredients here

Serves: 12
Prep time: 1 hour
Cook time: 40 minutes
Total time: about 6 hours, including cooling and chilling

Ingredients

For the chocolate sponge

• 6 large eggs, at room temperature
• 175g caster sugar
• 100g plain flour
• 25g cornflour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 50g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the cherry filling

• 1 jar morello cherries in syrup (about 680g)
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp kirsch

For the soaking syrup

• 100ml cherry syrup (reserved from the jar)
• 4 tbsp kirsch

For the cream

• 600ml double cream, well chilled
• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp kirsch

To decorate

• 100g dark chocolate (70%), for shavings
• 12 fresh cherries with stalks, or cocktail cherries

Method

1. Prepare the tin. Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan, gas 4). Grease a deep 20cm springform tin and line the base with baking parchment.
2. Whisk the eggs and sugar. Whisk the eggs and caster sugar with an electric mixer on high for about 8 minutes, until very thick, pale and tripled in volume. When you lift the beaters, the mixture should leave a ribbon trail on the surface for a few seconds.
3. Fold in the dry ingredients. Sift the flour, cornflour and cocoa together twice. Then sift them over the eggs in three batches, folding each one in gently with a large metal spoon. Drizzle the melted butter down the side of the bowl and fold through until just combined.
4. Bake. Pour into the tin and bake for 35–40 minutes, until well risen and springy, and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
5. Cool. Leave in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. For the neatest layers, bake the sponge the day before.
6. Make the cherry filling. Drain the cherries over a bowl, keeping the syrup. Set aside 100ml of the syrup for soaking. Mix the cornflour with a little of the remaining syrup to make a paste. Heat the rest of the syrup with the sugar in a pan, stir in the paste and simmer for 2–3 minutes until thick and glossy. Take off the heat, stir in the cherries and 2 tbsp kirsch, then leave to cool.
7. Make the soaking syrup. Mix the reserved 100ml cherry syrup with 4 tbsp kirsch.
8. Whip the cream. Whip the double cream with the icing sugar, vanilla and 2 tbsp kirsch until it holds soft-to-firm peaks. Stop before it turns grainy.
9. Slice and soak. Use a long serrated knife to slice the sponge horizontally into three even layers. Put the bottom layer on a serving plate and brush it generously with soaking syrup.
10. Layer up. Spread a layer of cream over the bottom sponge. Pipe a ring of cream around the edge, then spoon half the cherry filling inside it. Add the second sponge, soak it, then repeat with cream and the remaining cherries. Top with the final sponge and soak it too.
11. Cover and decorate. Cover the top and sides with most of the remaining cream. Shave curls from the dark chocolate with a vegetable peeler, press them onto the sides and scatter some over the top. Finally, pipe 12 cream rosettes around the edge and top each one with a cherry.
12. Chill. Chill for at least 2 hours before serving, so the flavours develop and the cake slices cleanly.

🔗 Shop Black Forest gateau ingredients here

Cheat’s 1980s Black Forest gateau (ready in 30 minutes)

Want the retro look without the faff? This is the version Gran would knock up when the in-laws turned up unannounced.

You’ll need:

• 2 shop-bought chocolate sponge layers (or 1 chocolate sponge, sliced in half)
• 1 can black cherry pie filling (about 400g)
• 4 tbsp cherry juice or kirsch
• 300ml double cream, whipped with 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 2 chocolate Flakes, crumbled
• Glacé cherries, to decorate

Method:

1. Brush both sponges with the cherry juice or kirsch.
2. Spread half the cream over the bottom layer, then spoon over the cherry pie filling.
3. Top with the second sponge and cover the whole cake with the remaining cream.
4. Press crumbled Flake around the sides and scatter some over the top.
5. Pipe cream rosettes around the edge and crown each one with a glacé cherry. Peak 1985 achieved.

🔗 Shop Black Forest gateau ingredients here

Black Forest gateau FAQs

Can I make Black Forest gateau without alcohol?
Yes. Swap the kirsch for the cherry syrup from the jar, or use cherry juice. It’s perfect for a family-friendly Christmas table.

Can I make it ahead?
Absolutely. Bake the sponge up to two days before and keep it well wrapped. Once assembled, the gateau keeps for two days in the fridge.

Can I freeze Black Forest gateau?
You can freeze the unfilled sponge for up to a month. However, we’d avoid freezing the finished cake, because the cream can turn grainy as it thaws.

Whether you go all out with the traditional kirsch-soaked original or whip up the cheat’s 1980s version with a crumbled Flake, one thing’s for certain. Black Forest gateau never really went out of style. We just forgot how good it was.

Better still, it’s the perfect excuse to dust off Gran’s cake stand, dig out the cut-glass bowls and pour yourself a Snowball. Pop the Christmas Top of the Pops repeats on, too. It’s only right.

🔗 Shop Black Forest gateau ingredients here